Bay of Islands/Northland

After getting back from Australia and relaxing for a day at the house, we headed out again this time for the Bay of Islands and the upper part of the North Island. We stayed at the farm for a night then began our drive up in the morning… not too long a drive (only a couple hours) and we had to fit in a stop at Puhoi Cheese for some coffee, ice cream and… cheese. 

Ballin

We got into Paihia (the gateway to the Bay of Islands) and got ready to board the Ipipiri, an overnight cruise that takes you out around the Bay of Islands and drops you off the following morning. We were amazed when we saw the boat… it was huge!! Like a mini cruise ship with your own ocean view room and your own bathroom… it was so flash. We bought our tickets from Groupon a couple of months before, which saved us a couple hundred bucks. Definitely not a backpacker/budget boat, and had a totally different crowd than what were used to when doing tours (older couples).

Look! Dolphins jumping!

 

View of the Bay of Islands... too bad about the clouds

The first day, we cruised out to an island and got to decide whether we wanted to go on a hike, go kayaking or go snorkeling… or all three. We did the hike and it had a good lookout to the beach and the other side of the island and lurked out onto a resort called “Eagles Nest” which apparently costs $8000 a night to stay there… hmm… went kayaking next and got lucky since a baby whale decided to pop up next to us/underneath our kayaks a bunch of times… kinda scary! But really cool… he seemed lost though and was all alone so that was a bit sad. Decided not to go snorkeling since the water was quite chilly and the weather wasn’t too nice to visibility was meh. Time to get back on the boat…

Our place in Paihia

Cruised along further and caught up with a big pod of bottle-nosed dolphins. They were jumping around and were everywhere you looked! When we left that spot they followed the boat, surfing on the waves… cuuutteeee. They had a bar on board and brought out snacks… it was all very luxurious though I think we were the youngest people on board, but it was relaxing. One of the best parts was the food! Big buffet dinner and dessert… so good… same with breakfast the next morning… ooh yeah. I was really sad to leave that boat and wish I could’ve stayed a couple more nights hahah.

Mangrove Boardwalk on the way to Haruru Falls

...Haruru Falls

We stayed in Paihia a couple more nights at a hotel we also got off Groupon, and did a couple more hikes on those days. We hiked up to Haruru Falls (1 ½ hours… really nice), hitchhiked back and drove out to some wineries in KeriKeri (15 min drive away). We went to Pukeko Vineyards, Fat Pig and Marsden… I bought wine at all three wineries… all the people were really nice and non-pretentious and they all had dogs. We also stopped at the chocolate shop in KeriKeri called Makana… they gave out lots of samples that were soo good we had to buy some… the butter toffee macadamia chocolate things were so amazing! But expensive… $25 for three slabs but ohh it was just so good… 

Winery Doggies

See when it clears up... nice blue water!

The next day we did a huge hike from PaihiaàOpuaàferryàthen all the way to Russell, a place once known as the “hellhole of the Pacific”, it was one of the earliest towns in New Zealand and had NZ’s oldest pub “The Duke of Marlborough”… so we had to go there of course. The entire walk took about 4-5 hours and we were pretty tired and surprisingly sunburnt after (even though it was cloudy… gahhh) so we had some beer and cider at the pub and took the other ferry back into Paihia right before it started to downpour! Went to the local RSA club for dinner and ate with the old peeps… but it was so yum.

Walk to Russell, not knowing that my arms/neck would be super sunburnt later

NZ's oldest pub, The Duke of Marlborough

We drove out the next morning for Kerikeri again to hit up to Farmers Market, but it was downpouring so we didn’t last too long. We drove and drove and got all the way to the very top of New Zealand at Cape Reinga. It had rained so much that a creek overflowed onto the road that stopped a bunch of cars but we drove on through… was a bit sketchy but in the end it was alright. The weather was still crap when we got up there… really foggy and rainy (and you can see in the pic) but started to clear up when we were leaving, so we managed to get a few good shots in. Glen did a huge drive from Cape Reinga back down to the farm, it took about four hours or so but it was good to be back there and not have to camp out somewhere.

Cape Reinga - Vancouver 11,000 kms away!

Road floodage

We’ve just been hanging out at Glen’s mum’s house the last couple of days, and now were just about to head down to do the Tongariro Crossing and are planning a trip to the South Island for next week, so I’ll keep you posted!