Bay of Islands

After a couple of comfy nights out at Lantana, four of us await out the front for a taxi to take us into town to meet up with the bus, but unfortunately due to some type of mess up on many levels, no taxi and no bus. We each made several calls into Magic, who seemed to be on top of the situation, but nevertheless after an hour onward North we go for some pleasant driving via Whangarei (said Fangarei.. and I'd love someone to explain to me where the "F" sound comes from that, as it is with all towns here that start with "Wh". I asked a few locals, including some Maori's who of course reminded me that they didn't have a written language so the translation appears to be entirely of english/european origin).

We arrive at the spectacular location of Paihia (a base area for the Bay of Islands) and many of us settle in at what turns out to be one of the best value places you could stay anywhere in NZ. Not only were the surrounds great, but the backpacker was five star in every respect. This one was quite new, beautifully designed, great beds (I mananged to get a double), and even a spa that seemed to have the heat turned up too high, but hey, there's a swimming pool right there if you need to cool down. NZ$22/night with no hidden extras and no memberships reqd.
Some crab seats carved out of a tree trunk.

We don't hang about for two long. Etienne, Christian and myself walk a bit further north to the location of the Waitangi Treaty grounds. We opt out for actually going in (most of this stuff was at the Te Papa museum anyway, and it cost $20 just to walk in there - non NZers only, plus anther $20 for the tour). So smelling that meant it was a bit touristy onward we went on to walk around to Haruru Falls. Nice enough walk to kill off the afternoon, but nothing to write about, so much so that we walked back via the highway.

The next day seemed like a good possibility for scoping out more of the surrounds but in the end, a quiet day at the Bay Adventurer and surrounds was the best value. Speaking of value.. make sure you're friendly with the checkout chicks at Woolworths, because they'll hit another button only the locals get there, which worked out to be about 7% off.

Come Wednesday, we've booked onto "On The Edge". A super sleek cataraman to sail around the islands nearby. We set sail just after 9:30am with initially near no wind, but true to the forecast it had kicked in by about 10am to take us out to some of the outer lying islands (there was a quiz on this, but we all failed.. I think it was "Waewaetorea" - see top right corner of map below). It was easy to get lost around here without SatNav and of course our skipper Dave had one of these at the helm, but I think he knew his way around here pretty good anyway. On our way into anchoring around "whywhy" we were escorted in by a bunch of playful dolphins. Fotunately, the sun was out, the water was a beautiful torquise and this was a quite a sight to see especially with the hull design as the dolphins were in and under and around all over the place.

While we're being entertained by the dolphins, one of the crew is busy down the back on the BBQ preparing us a meal for when we anchor in the bay. We all get ourselves a feed and then some of us take the tender, some kayak, and some (me) swim in to shore. We spend a few hours here doing all sorts of stuff, from kayakng, snorkelling and tramping around the island, to even taking the tender out for a spin to do some biscuiting (or donuting. or tyre tube riding etc). "Your mission Dave, is to get me to fall off". The jury is still out I hear.



We set sail again for home, this time Dave uses the motors to wind up the mainsail (rather than five of us passengers raising a sweat to raise it.. we got tricked on the way out that we had to do the ropes by hand - which was our first clue that our skipper was a quite a funny fella, with first class comedic commentary from beginning to end.

All in all, a fantastic well rounded day out. A great boat, a great place and a great crew. Thanks to Gavin, Brendan and Dave for a great day out.

Later on we party on up the road at one of the watering holes - lured in by several rounds of cheap drinks. It was great value no matter how you did your sums.