Monday was the start of my last week at Unitec, and with plenty of deliveries of things like carpet and ceiling tiles there was a lot of lifting. It did however rain quite badly towards the end of the week, receiving all the rain in the aftermath of Cyclone Donna. To prepare for this we covered the roof in tarp as best we could to avoid it flooding again although the main building still leaks in so many places which isn't great. Due to the heavy rain we finished earlier on Friday although it was nice to go for a few beers before leaving saying goodbye to everyone I've been working with. It was also nice one of my old friends from South America arrived on Thursday evening who I'm going to do the Bay of Islands with.
To put it simple I'm flying down to Christchurch on the 20th May with no particular plans in terms of work, and visiting the Bay of Islands for the week before that. The Bay of Islands is a New Zealand enclave encompassing more than 140 subtropical islands next to the country's North Island. It’s known for its undeveloped beaches, big-game fishing and Maori cultural artefacts. It is also where the Waitangi treaty was signed in 1840. It is commonly referred to as the winter less north due to the reasonable all year round temperatures. With 5 nights up here, I had to plenty of time to explore, and doing it with an old friend on dragoman, and on kiwi experience meant I was doing the area with other backpackers.
Leaving Auckland at 7.15am in the morning, we departed on a relatively empty bus up towards Paihia, which is a popular tourist town to see the Bay of Islands. En route we stopped in Warkworth for breakfast which is where I got the bus to the week before. We then continued heading north, stopping for a short walk at Whangarei falls which was a nice little walk to a 26m high waterfall. It was then one final push towards Paihia, arriving by about 12ish. There was however a big country music festival so there were lots of people walking round in hats and doing line dancing!
After checking into the hostel which was about a 100m walk from the beach, we went on a boat trip out into the bay to see some of the islands. With 144 islands in and around the bay, we weaved in and out of the passages following the Cape Brett Peninsula out towards the lighthouse and famous hole in the rock which was a sea arch. Prior to leaving we told there was a 96% success rate of seeing dolphins, and even a chance of seeing Orcas and Killer Whales if you're lucky. We were typically in the 4% who didn't see any although they give you a free boat trip if you don't see any so if I want to do the boat trip again I can. It was still beautiful seeing all the islands however.
On the way back we got off the ferry at Russell which is the town on the other side of the harbour from Paihia, and was the old capital of New Zealand as other was the first area settled by Europeans. This is hence home to the oldest pub in New Zealand and we had a drink here while watching the sunset. We then headed back to Paihia on the ferry where we had a bbq back at the hostel which was really nice. With it being Saturday night and lots of backpackers about it was a really good evening.
On Sunday we managed to a get a few of us together to do a walk around the harbour, effectively a loop walk including two ferry rides. After having a lie in which was much needed we got lunch and followed the rocky coastline round to Opua. There were some pretty nice views of the harbour and we walked along some lovely beaches. At Opua we had to catch a ferry across to Opatiku, just a 5 minute ride on a car ferry. The walk then headed inland through native bush, on a fairly undulating section. It then headed down to the beach again where we followed some boardwalks through the mangroves back to Russell, where we caught the ferry back to Paihia. It was a pretty solid walk getting back at sunset, and come evening we went to a cheap restaurant for dinner, before heading back to the hostel ready for an early start the next day.
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