Blogs from Paihia, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

Our real first day of our holiday and what a day it was! It started this morning with a solid breakfast in Auckland and finished with a great dinner in Paihia in the Bay of Islands about 250 km north of Auckland. We traveled the distance by car, that we rented. Driving in New Zealand is on the wrong side of the road, i.e. left, which initially brings a lot of complications. Different driving functions are on the opposite side of the steering wheel, which has very clean windows as a result, because every time you think you indicate direction, the wiperblades come on and when you think you turned the lights on, after some time, you come to the conclussion that the wiperblades on the rear window is on. The landscape here is unbelievable beautiful, ... read more

We've had a great past few days in the Bay of Islands sadly the weather hasn't really been on our side, its been warm, yes, with a few sunny spells but it's mainly drizzling and cloudy. One bonus is that it's given Rich the chance to recover from his burns ?? ? However, we've been in NZ a week now and I'm still struggling to see any signs of a tanline. (white girl problems) I can dream.. Starting the morning on Saturday (6th Feb) with a coffee on the waterfront in Paihia at a place called Upperdeck, great views of the bays and top class coffee ?? We booked ourselves onto a Discover the Bays cruise for the afternoon. It was SO worthwhile! I would highly recommend. Even with the less than perfect weather conditions it ... read more

Drove about 3 hours north to the bay of islands. Took a 4 hour boat cruise yesterday. Saw some dolphins, whales, beautiful islands (144 in total), had a beer at the oldest licensed establishment in NZ in the town of Russell, very beautiful hike, perfect weather. Great steak dinner put on by the hostel. Poker tournament last night. Lost on my queen kicker to an ace kicker. Going back to Auckland today, then heading south tomorrow.... read more

Hallo ihr Lieben, Anni und ich sind inzwischen in Paihia angekommen, einer Stadt in den Bay of Islands im Norden Neuseelands. Letztes Wochenende haben wir uns ein Auto gekauft ( wir haben es auf den Namen ,,Walker'' getauft). Unserer erste Autobesichtigung hatten wir allerdings am Samstag. Ein Backpacker namens Petr wollten sein Auto verkaufen, nachdem er damit ca. ein Jahr lang durch Neuseeland gereist ist. Uns war klar das wir eine Probefahrt machen mussten und Anni opferte sich, auf mein betteln hin, als Erste zu fahren. Da Petr die hinteren Sitze aus seinem Auto genommen hatte um ein Bett einzubauen hatten wir allerdings nur die beiden vorderen Sitze zur Verfügung und da Anni weder alleine mit Petr fahren wollte und wir zu zweit alleine auch eher ungern in der großen Stadt fahren wollten, entschied Petr kurzerhand ... read more

Hello Bloggers, We woke up with the Asians blow-drying hair again, it wasn’t too early though. They said they were off to Cape Reinga by rented car, so we let them get in the shower and use the kitchen before we got out of bed. We had booked the car for another day too as we want to see Waipoua forest to see giant Kauri trees. So after cheese on toast for breakfast we set off on the 1h40min drive across to the west coast. The drive was easy, only a couple of roads to navigate, average speed was about 100km, and we arrived. Before we did however, we pulled over a few times to admire the incredible landscape of northern NZ the view point over North Head and Omapere-Opononi were amazing!! (Hopefully the photos will ... read more