Background: The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year, the British began the first organized colonial settlement. A series of land wars between 1843 and 1872 ended with the defeat of the native peoples. The British colony of New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907 and supported the UK militarily in both World Wars. New Zealand's full participation in a number of defense alliances lapsed by the 1980s. In recent years, the government has sought to address longstanding Maori grievances.
July 23rd 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Russell Vanochtend toch goed weer om dolfijnen te kijken. Het zonnetje scheen en er waren maar een paar wolken en weinig wind.
Rond negen uur kwam de catamaran waarmee we mee zouden gaan. Een erg mooi en s ... [full story]
July 26th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Russell Vanmorgen kwam de mevrouw van de camping langs om te vertellen dat onze dolfijnenzwemboottocht gecancelled was vanwege het slechte weer. Het regende namelijk al de hele tijd. We hebben vandaag weinig ... [full story]
June 22nd 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands Hi all. Well we survived our long weekend diving trip at Poor Knights Island - classified as one of the world's top 10 dive sites by Jacque Cousteau - one of my childhood heros. Marcos and I stayed wi ... 40 photos[full story]
June 17th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Paihia The day after the clay pigeon shooting, we went on the Luge and sadly, I lost.. 3-0. In my defence, Alex races dirty and I was unlucky, and the races were close (we have photographic evidence!), but I ... [full story]
June 12th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Paihia The long wait is finally over, but more to come on that later!
Yesterday morning, I hopped on a bus at Sky City, and headed four hours up the road to Paihia, located in the gorgeous Bay of Islands. ... [full story]
June 9th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands Brrrrrr we have definatley come out of the tropics and arrived in New Zealand. So here is the last blog in the sailing story.
This blog covers Tonga down to NZ.
... 18 photos[full story]
June 8th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Kerikeri Well it has been a while, but this travelling thing is hard work and very busy! We will break things down into a couple of entries first I will go back to our last couple of weeks in Kerikeri. Well we ... [full story]
June 5th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Paihia Firstly let us apologise in the delay in writing this blog. We only had 13 days in New Zealand so we had to make every second count!
We flew into Queenstown on 24th May through a medly of snow capp ... 27 photos[full story]
June 3rd 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Russell New Zealand:
After months of planning and a grueling 40 hours of traveling, Lauren arrives in New Zealand only to be diverted to Christchurch because for the first time in 2 1/2 years Auckland Int ... 10 photos[full story]
June 3rd 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Russell Okay so we had the whole international date thing again which meant that we arrived into Auckland late on the evening of Tuesday when we departed Samoa for our 4 hour flight on Monday. Mmmmm we're ge ... 14 photos[full story]
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