Bay of Islands

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 house

Well 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!!!

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).

Sweet as in the big smoke

City centre from the Sky tower
Sunset from the City centre
Pufferfish
View of the glass floor of the tower
Scary
View of the main observation deck

Shot of the Tunnels under the aquarium
Shark
Shark jaws
Giant Crayfish
Giant Seahorse

Bungee from the Bridge
The last volcanoe to erupt in Auckland
Sailing boats - there is one in the Harbour for every four people in Auckland
View from the Skytower
Arctic centre penguins

View of the otherside of the harbour
Skyline
Hilton (where Paris made her famous videos)
Skyline from the harbour
Auckland Harbour

Maori Carving
Long boat
Maori Carving
Maori Carving
Hopefully I'll see a live one too

Maori Carving
Maori Carving
Replica meeting house in Museum
Part of the supporting struts of the meeting house
Meeting house

Replica Canoe thought to have been used by South Islands People
Native Cook islands religous gear (pre missionaires)
Sacred house
During Haka
Maori Carving

The Kiwis have an expression that they use all the bloody time. 'Sweat as' has already started to annoy me and I'm here for 6 weeks!!! I arrived in Auckland (or the big smoke) as Kiwis refer to it on Sunday. Auckland is the largest City in New Zealand and is home to around 1.2 million people - over a quarter of the population. The city has a main street running through the centre called Queens street. Its full of shops and backpackers. You can walk the street to the harbour in around 10 minutes. Shopping is good here. I spent a tenner on two pairs of branded flip flops (or Jandals in Kiwi). Bargain. Auckland is more relaxed than i was expecting and is full of backpackers and Japenese tourists. The hostel I'm saying at has 500 beds and has a night club in the basement, internet cafe, three tv rooms, massive communal kitchen, travel agency, work placement centre and two bars. Its huge. The showers are mighty annoying though as you have to hold in a button for the water to run. It really bugs me.
I went on a harbour Cruise as apparently you have to tour the harbour (largest in the Southern Hemisphere). Cruise was pretty cool and the city looks impressive from the water. We stopped and watched a few bungees from the bridge. The last one went into the water up to his waist. I'm not planning on jumping of no bridge.
I also went to the museum. The first floor is dedicated to Maori and the South Pacific people. Scientists think that Maoris are related to the South Asia Island people (Indonesians, Malaysians, Papua New Guineans etc). They think that these people gradually migrated across the south pacific and some that had settled in the Cook Island moved south to settle in New Zealand!! Really interesting museum. We also watched some Haka (dancing) done by a local performing group. The Maori carving was pretty impressive and they even have a full size replica meeting house set up in the Museum. The trip was well worth it.

The city skyline is dominated by a huge tower. It is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. I went up to watch sunset and had brilliant views of the harbour and the city. I really enjoyed the afternoon.
I also took a trip to the aquarium and arctic centre which is just out of town. I waited two hours for the bus and when i got there i was in such a bad mood i didn't really enjoy it. You travel under the aquarium on a conveyor belt (or travellerator - for anyone who watched Gladiators). They had a few few sharks and lots of boring fish. Well not worth the trip!! I know its bad but i'm starting to bore of all the toruist attractions and the Cities. I'm looking forward to seeing the countryside and relaxed atmosphere.

The internet is cheap here and so i have edited the earlier post to add pictures to all the posts made from February onwards. I get on the Kiwi experience bus to head up to the Bay of Islands and the Cape Reigna tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing the far north of the North Island.

Kia Orana Rarotonga

Well a final post on my time in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. The last few days have been a bit weird....

I was spending a fair bit of time with couple from Switzerland. We would go to the beach together, play cards etc etc. They are really nice and i bumped into them in Auckland?? They came to find me to say goodbye as i didn't see them before they left the hostel. They were here en-route to South America from Rarotonga and knew i had come here. We swapped email addresses. They are now on their way to South America.

The last few days the weather was storming and overcast and so I spent the days playing cards with a few of the hostel staff and the manager. We were playing a game called sh@thead that we re-named George Bush. I actually got quite good. I won the last four games and so left on a winning streak... The hostel staff take the game quite seriously and on the second to last night a fight broke out which lead to further arguments and repercussions. It sort of spoiled the last week as there was an atmosphere around the place...all for a game of cards.
The other wierd happening was to do with mossies. A new bloke was put in my room. He had just come from another of the islands and was a bit ill. I thought nothing of it and carried on as usual. At the end of the day the manager came and saw me and said that I needed to move rooms because the bloke had got Denge Fever from the other island!!! Now I have been coating myself every four hours over the last 2 weeks in mosssie repellent to try and stop me catching Denge Fever.... and they put someone in my room with it???? I was moved next door - which i guess was kinda useless really. This got me really paranoid as I spent a good few hours before i knew anything was wrong in the room wearing aftersun and no mossie repellent!!!! After that point, i put on double the amount of repellent and tried to avoid the bloke and the hostel common areas!! I was so paranoid - i was itching for the last few days all the time. Denge fever is pretty nasty and as well as a fever you have headaches, you feel weak and it can lead to bleeding. The bloke got really ill from it and could bearly talk , walk or eat. Nasty. Now thank god that i dont think i got bitten. I'm hoping i will be okay. The flight to Auckland to New Zealand was okay except fropm sitting next to a Welsh man who moved to NZ five years ago. He was nice enough but had at least six glasses of wine and was getting a bit on my nerves!!! He was really enthusiastic and was extolling the virtues of living in NZ for over 45 minutes in a slurred welsh accent that wasn't that easy to understand.