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North Island Travel Blogs

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.

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By Greggerfer
December 7th 2009

I hurt. Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Coromandel » Thames

OK, so I've finally succumbed to using the crap internet here long enough to write a blog. I've been in Thames for 3 weeks now and it's definitely time to move on! Not a lot has really happened here to mention, but I did get to see a Santa Parade, which appears to be a national thing whereby at Christmas every town has a little parade of various local businesses and such and then at the end someone is dressed as Santa. It was alright, quite nice to see a little town being all community spirited and that. What else? Well, [View Full Entry]

By Greggerfer
December 7th 2009

PHOTOS! Oceania » New Zealand » North Island

greg 009

Apologies you can't seem to edit once you've published so I've had to do a separate blog purely for photos...enjoy! [View Full Entry]

By AnTiLi
December 4th 2009

Dezember 2009 Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Plenty » Tauranga

Linus - endlich neune!

Advent, Advent ein Lichtlein brennt - der Countdown hat mal wieder begonnen. Linus Geburtstag, Nikolaus, Weihnachten und Silvester... eine einzige non-stop-party! [View Full Entry]

nach einer schlaflosen Nacht - endlich Geschenke!

verrueckte Welt - mit neun den ersten Computer...

By Marie and Mike
December 2nd 2009

Kia Ora Oceania » New Zealand » North Island

Picture 002
All set up and ready to go!

Hey! I hope you are all good, I cant believe that it is December already! it seems that 2009 is just zooming by and I cant quite believe that we are heading into Christmas. Believe me, its really weird having our first warm Christmas, I keep seeing the sky at night get lighter and lighter as well as all the blossom coming out on the trees...it really doesn't compute in my head at all! It seems ages since I last wrote to you all, so allow me to fill you in with what we have been up too since we went [View Full Entry]

By Kazwad
December 2nd 2009

Wells still raining! Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington

Ok - so the weather has not let up since i have arrived, with the exception of one day where i decided to get myself so sunburnt that i can only now sit on my thighs comfortably 4 days later. i only missed one part of my body with cream! Other than that it has given england a run for its money. Although to be fair - i have been told the whole of the country has suffered this front and i should not blame wellington itself. However, the flu i have been in bed with for 3 days i'm sure [View Full Entry]

By TomandRachel
December 2nd 2009

Taupo and the Skydive Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Taupo

Day 9 So we had arrived at Lake Taupo the night before and had awoken to a beautiful red hot day, and were wondering what to with ourselves when Tom suggested that perhaps we should spontaneously do a skydive. We had originally planned to wait to Franz Josef the glacier in the South Island to do one as we had been told that the scenery was stunning but more recently a couple of people had told us that we should go with the weather. So this is what we decided to do (the right decision ultimately as we have just been [View Full Entry]

By McHearns
December 1st 2009

Visit to Paihia and Russell : 30/11 - 1/12 Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Islands » Paihia

Pohutukawa Tree
The "christmas" trees are flowering rather early this year. This is on the side of the Waitangi river

On Monday 30th we travelled to Paihia and booked into the Bay Sands motel for just one night. We thought about staying two nights but the traffic was so noisy at night we settled for just the one! We walked the beaches and generally had a very lazy day, The weather was quite good, although not very sunny. The threatened rain did not eventuate fortunately. We watched the activities on the beach from our deck at the motel including the para-sailing by one very clever man who managed to sail both with the wind and against it - up and down [View Full Entry]

By Sunriseoversea
December 1st 2009

The Greatest Concert Ever and Meeting Paul in Whangarei again... Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Central

IN AUCKLAND FOR THE CONCERT On my return to my room a crazy scottish guy imediately started talking to me. He was just sat on his own in the room drinking whisky out of a hip flask and seemed pretty drunk already. He seemed friendly enough and when the rest of the room arrived (2 elderly people, Nora and John and 2 young Germans who'd just arrived from Hamburg) he insisted that we should have a party in the room tonight and that I should play guitar. He pretty much forced us to give him some money to get us all [View Full Entry]

By CN Travels
November 30th 2009

Road Trip! Hawke's Bay and Gisborne Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Hawkes Bay

Mid Range on the way to Napier

Heading Out We had been talking about heading out for a few weeks, since we had been in Tauranga looking for work for nearly three weeks, some other people had left, and Carla got a job with the city that started in two and a half weeks. Just as we were preparing to leave the next day, we got a call from one of the employment services agencies to work a night shift at the fish factory. We went, we worked, we left the next day. We drove straight from Tauranga to Napier, having gone to Taupo before we made really [View Full Entry]

By Kazwad
November 28th 2009

Windy Welly Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Wellington

Photo 2

So, wellington. After an early hours pajama fire evacuation, i woke up to the whole bus having left for the south island, and an absolute gale blowing outside. It is notorious for the wind here due to the location and shape of the harbour, but walking head on into the wind made my eyes water! what the hell am i doing here - alone? i was in shorts yesterday getting burnt. This place sucks. After i had had my morning paddy and a very long moaning phone call to brighton, things started to look up. Apart from the fat canadian in [View Full Entry]

Travel Blog » Oceania » New Zealand » North Island