Paihia, North Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The road trip began as the three of us decided to head North we stopped at quite a lot of bays on the way, Browns Bay, Red beach, Leigh, Walkworth, Goat Island and stopped as a lovely quaint village called Puho where we bought a bag of chips for lunch. We settled at a village called Waipu Cove which was lovely, the campsite we stopped at was great the owner gave us plates and mugs to keep. The campsites here are amazing they have kitchens, laundry, lounge and great showers, better than most hostels in Bolivia and Peru. The beach was so pretty and we were right next to it so we took a stroll to watch sunset.
Further North is The Bay Of Islands which was our next stop on the way we stopped at Whangare to buy some bowls, spoons etc. There is a waterfall which is described as the Paris Hylton of falls - Not too beautiful but the most photographed!! It was great much better than Paril Hylton, we walked through the forest which was very lush. The weather at this point was getting really bad we had the tail end of a storm that was sweeping Australia so we pushed on to Paiha. When we arrived we could see all the islands surrounding the bay which looked amazing but then the rain and wind came in. We drove to a caravan park, but when we got there the manager told us he only had apartments it wasn't a campsite however he said we shouldn’t be camping with the weather bad and offered us a private apartment for $40 now as shared dorms in hostels were $46 plus we jumped at it he had free wifi too, so we spent the whole afternoon and night downloading films, chilling on a the sofa and washing our clothes, this is a typical example of how lovely the people are her, they go out there way to help.
The following day the storm eased off a bit so we went to Watangi to visit the much talked about Watangi Treaty Grounds. 1940 this is where Maori chiefs and British Crown signed New Zealands most important document – The Treaty Of Watangi. We watched a Maori culture show wherewe learned all about the Maori culture and they did the Haka and got the guys up to teach them how to do it, this was a lot of fun watching Justin. We wandered around the Treaty grounds which were immaculate then visited the Treaty House, it was so incredible and we spent most of the morning there, it was so peaceful. We then pitched up at a great campsite which overlooked Waitangi waterfall.
