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Published: October 24th 2012
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James was up fairly early to travel across town and pick up the hire car. This time we made sure it was a manual with a decent engine and we were excited for our road trip. We planned to drive about 230KM north of Auckland to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. We planned to stay there for 2 nights, spending some time exploring there and then heading further North, right to the Northmost tip of the Island to Cape Reinga, this is the point where the two oceans meet.
The drive up to Paihia was pretty easy, taking us 4 hours in total but that included a lunch stop in a lovely small town called Whangarei en route. After the journeys in Australia we really tried not to push ourselves to far so we could enjoy it! We were at the hostel by 2.30 and luckily it was quiet enough for us to have an ensuite 4 bed dorm to ourselves. The hostel was actually great, with loads of communal space and a great kitchen. After checking in we went out to do some walking. It is so nice being back in a green foresty landscape again. What we
have seen of NZ so far is that it is stunning. Parts of it could be the lake district until you notice the exotic birds and trees in amongst the heather. We did a walk from the hostel, about 13km, mostly through woodland and on a mangrove board walk through the river to get to a waterfall. It was lovely to get out into the country and do some proper walking! We hadn't really realised that we were getting a bit fed up of city walking until now. We spent the evening in the hostel, cooking tea and just generally chilling out.
We set off at 10am for our drive to Cape Reinga, this was about a 210km drive, this time on smaller roads. It was another trip through stunning hills and forest land, mixed in with dramatic coastlines and big sand dunes. Bit of a frustrating drive due to the quantity of roadworks, this meant the speed limit went from 30KPH to 100KPH and back to 50KPH within a few hundred meters and i can tell you, 30KPH is slow indeed! It took us about 3 hours to get there in the end and when we did it
was very windy indeed. As i mentioned before, this point is where the Tasman sea and the Pacific Ocean meet and it is supposed to be an important place in Mauri legend. They see it as the place where your spirit departs this world for the next.
It can be quite dramatic as the waves crash into each other out at sea. Luckily the wind made it quite rough when we went, and we got a good view. It's crazy to see the two stretches of water going in different directions, not really something I'd ever thought about before! We tried to do a bit of a walk around the headland, as there are loads of trecking routes around here, but in the wind and without a map we just ended up walking all the way down a big hill and then back up. The drive back was much the same except for being the first time I (Rach) had driven since July!
When we returned to the hostel we got showered and changed and went out for some food. It seems to be very quiet in Paihia at this time of year (although we have seen literally
hundreds of campervans!), so despite the fact there is a real backpacker area of the town, all the hostel bars were pretty quiet and chilled. Paihia itself seems to be built for tourism and is full of hostels and motels. This means there isn't so much local culture here and it is mostly used as a jumping off point to head for the Bay of Islands, which is what we did the next morning.
There are loads and loads of boat trips available in the Bay of Islands, varying from dolphin hunting fast boats, to big tourist launches and sailing boats. We didn't quite know what we wanted except that we wanted to visit the Bay and do it in half a day, as we planned to head back to Auckland this afternoon. We asked the girl at the hostel reception what to do. She offered us the big tour boat, going to see "the hole in the rock" seemingly the postcard image of the Bay of Islands at about 50 pounds each, or a fast sailing catamaran around some islands for about 40. We chose the Cat and we are so glad we did! It was a big
yellow catamaran, and only had 4 people on it, the two of us and another 2 girls who were on a full day sail. When the sails went up it was really fast and a lot of fun as we sat on the front tramps watching the islands go by. We were dropped off on one island for half an hour where we had a walk to the top of a small hill for a fantastic view of the bay. Then on the return leg there was only me and James. How often do you get a private boat for 80 pounds! We saw some dolphins about 5m from the boat as we were putting the sails up which was fantastic. James also got involved with putting the sails up. We were so glad we did this trip, it was a great morning and there's nothing quite like the feeling of the wind pushing that light boat along so fast and turning so quickly that one side is out of the water.
After this we sat on the hill and had some lunch overlooking the bay, before heading back to the city. This little trip has been so great,
stunning scenery and non of the stress of the last time we hired a car! We are falling in love with NZ a bit and can't wait to see more!
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