Russell (First capital of New Zealand - once it turned into town of sleaze and ill repute the capital moved to Auckland and eventually Wellington)
Cormorants
Beach leading to the Mangrove
Roots of the Mangrove trees
River through the Mangroves
Fern
Pathway through the forest
Boardwalk through the Mangroves
View of the Mangrove swamps
Haruru Falls
Haruru Falls
Haruru Falls
View of the Islands from the Boat
Excitor Boat
View of the best beach in the bay of islands
View of the islands
View of one of the caves next to the hole in the rock
Boat trying to navigate into the cave
View of the islands
View from inside the hole in the rock
View of the bay
View of the bay i walked around on my trek to the haruru falls
View of Russell (First British settlement and previous Capital)
View of Russell with the excitor boat
View of hole in the rock 
Replica boat
Tree stump - from tree used to build the boat
Where the treaty was signed with replica Mr Bugsby (drafted the treaty)
The British representatives house in Waitangi
National Maori meeting house
Inside the meeting houseWell my first trip with Kiwi experience (backpacker bus) is up from Auckland to the Bay of Islands. We are staying in Paihia which is the largest town in the area. The bus is just a glorified coach full of backpackers. The driver can arrange accommodation, activities and get you reservations on other legs of the trip - this is really useful. You meet loads of new people on the bus and i'm starting to get in the habit of just talking about random things to complete strangers!!! The drivers are quite wacky and play Kiwi music and tell you all about the Country. I enjoyed the trip up to Paihia.
We got to Paihia early afternoon and I booked a trip on the Excitor for the afternoon. It's basically a huge red speed boat that tears up the bay for 2 hours. It was a brilliant ride as we were going at 45 knots in a boat with two massive caterpillar engines. Each engine in an hour uses enough fuel to power a family car to travel around New Zealand!!! The captain was belting out 80's rock classics whilst we were surfing the waves. He was jumping a lot of them and if you didn't hang you you would be bumped off you seat into the air. I reckon the boat must of been out of the water completely a number of time as the force of the bumps was amazing. It is definitely the highlight of the trip so far. The weather was gorgeous and the captain took us around some of the 144 islands that make up the bay of islands. The weather was beautiful and so we were all sweating in our plastic jump suits that we had to wear. They didn't really stop us from getting wet as i was soaked when we got back!!!
The hostel we were staying at were small chalets all joined up. They were really nice and close to the beach. They hostel puts on a BBQ every evening and we spent the evening in the bar drinking and chatting. Really nice.
The next day I went for a "walk" to the local Haruru falls. Now it was billed as being around a 1.5 hour "walk". I left the hostel at around 11:30 in the morning in flip flops as its too hot to wear proper shoes. After 45 minutes i finally got to the edge of town and the start of the track. At this point i was contemplating walking back!!! 45 minutes just to the start of the track!!! The walk is through forest along a pebbled path. Wearing flip flops was not a good idea and i soon got blisters from the plastic straps. Sweating and slightly annoyed i notice the 1km marking with a sign of 4km left!!!! At this point i was really contemplating going back as I was already knackered. For some reason i carried on and I eventually got to a tiny set of falls after 2 and a hour hours after starting on the track. The walk was more like a trek and after 10 minutes of looking at the ferns and trees i was fairly bored. I did walk through a mangrove forest though using the board walk which was pretty cool though. You have to walk back the way you came and so after a brief rest watching the tiny water falls I power walked (if you can call it that in the stated i was) back. I did the return in about 1.5 hours and my i-Pod really helped out. I eventually got back to the hostel after 5.30 and i couldn't believe how far the walk was. I must of covered 12kms that afternoon.
I went out in the evening with some of the people from my room and we went to the local club for a few drinks. They were nice people and we were requesting songs all night. A few drinks turned out to be around 8-10 pints. I don't drink beer and so i was in for a lovely hangover in the morning!!!
We got to Paihia early afternoon and I booked a trip on the Excitor for the afternoon. It's basically a huge red speed boat that tears up the bay for 2 hours. It was a brilliant ride as we were going at 45 knots in a boat with two massive caterpillar engines. Each engine in an hour uses enough fuel to power a family car to travel around New Zealand!!! The captain was belting out 80's rock classics whilst we were surfing the waves. He was jumping a lot of them and if you didn't hang you you would be bumped off you seat into the air. I reckon the boat must of been out of the water completely a number of time as the force of the bumps was amazing. It is definitely the highlight of the trip so far. The weather was gorgeous and the captain took us around some of the 144 islands that make up the bay of islands. The weather was beautiful and so we were all sweating in our plastic jump suits that we had to wear. They didn't really stop us from getting wet as i was soaked when we got back!!!
The hostel we were staying at were small chalets all joined up. They were really nice and close to the beach. They hostel puts on a BBQ every evening and we spent the evening in the bar drinking and chatting. Really nice.
The next day I went for a "walk" to the local Haruru falls. Now it was billed as being around a 1.5 hour "walk". I left the hostel at around 11:30 in the morning in flip flops as its too hot to wear proper shoes. After 45 minutes i finally got to the edge of town and the start of the track. At this point i was contemplating walking back!!! 45 minutes just to the start of the track!!! The walk is through forest along a pebbled path. Wearing flip flops was not a good idea and i soon got blisters from the plastic straps. Sweating and slightly annoyed i notice the 1km marking with a sign of 4km left!!!! At this point i was really contemplating going back as I was already knackered. For some reason i carried on and I eventually got to a tiny set of falls after 2 and a hour hours after starting on the track. The walk was more like a trek and after 10 minutes of looking at the ferns and trees i was fairly bored. I did walk through a mangrove forest though using the board walk which was pretty cool though. You have to walk back the way you came and so after a brief rest watching the tiny water falls I power walked (if you can call it that in the stated i was) back. I did the return in about 1.5 hours and my i-Pod really helped out. I eventually got back to the hostel after 5.30 and i couldn't believe how far the walk was. I must of covered 12kms that afternoon.
I went out in the evening with some of the people from my room and we went to the local club for a few drinks. They were nice people and we were requesting songs all night. A few drinks turned out to be around 8-10 pints. I don't drink beer and so i was in for a lovely hangover in the morning!!!
My last day in the Bay of Islands and i walked to Waitangi. Its credited with being the birthplace of modern New Zealand. A treaty was drafted in the town by the British representative. This was discussed and the local, and wider, New Zealand Maori tribes agreed and signed the treaty. It is said that it protects Maori rights whilst making New Zealand part of the British Empire. It makes the Pakeha (white man) and Maori of equal standing in Aotearoa (New Zealand). The Maori requested a representative from Britain on the Island and this man was credited with drafting and (with some help of a translated) getting agreement on the Treaty. On the treaty grounds is a meeting house built for all Maori tribes to use and a replica boat of that which Maori legend said brought the first Maori to the Islands in the great Migration. (Aotearoa by the way means land of the long white cloud).
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