Northland

So, you’ve met Lurch and now our travels have really begun. We visited Haruru Falls which cascade in a horseshoe shape, and into the Waitangi River.

The holiday park was overlooking the bay and a short walk across the bridge to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds which is known as the birthplace of New Zealand as a nation. On the 6^th February 1840, the treaty was signed between 500 Maori chiefs and the British crown, handing over sovereignty of the land to the Queen. The history is really interesting as the Maori translation of the treaty is a little different to the English version, and hence the land wars started. A beautiful meeting house was completed in 1940 to mark the centenary of the treaty.

A 35m war canoe was also built for the occasion, made from giant Kauri logs

A short walk away is the small town of Paihia

where we caught the ferry to Russell, once the capital of this country and also known as the “Hell hole of the Pacific”, largely due to the number of rowdy whalers and drunken sailors that used to go ashore for drinking and whoring, not necessarily in that order. Now it is a quaint seaside town and marketing have rebranded it “Romantic Russell”.  We walked up Flagstaff hill and looked down over the bay.

We also saw this on a house in Russell which made us both laugh…

From Russell, we toured the Bay of Islands which is truly spectacular. Captain Cook recorded 150 islands when in fact there are a lot less than that.

Motukokako Island is also known as ‘Hole in the Rock’ for obvious reasons…

The captain also took us right into the cave, but the boat was too big to go all the way through!

We were also lucky enough to see bottlenose dolphins swimming alongside our boat and playing in the sea

The next day we continued north along Route 10, through Kerikeri to Mangonui and Doubtless Bay. After a quick stop to have a look around, we carried on through Kaitaia to Ahipara and the start of 90 Mile Beach.

Today we did a day trip up to Cape Reinga, right up at the top of the island. We drove along the beach up as far as Te Paki Stream, where the bus then drove up the stream to the large sand dunes where people could have a go at sand boarding. Far too energetic for me, so I had fun watching the young uns’ careering down the wet sand into the muddy stream at the bottom :-)  Cape Reinga marks the separation of the Tasman Sea from the Pacific Ocean.

Tomorrow we head back down via the west coast to Waipoua Forest.