Foreign Travelers

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After leaving Home Port Farm and the surrounding area of Whangarei, I continued traveling north and tried to stay at a nice little beach campsite but I was literally chased out of there by a mean old Maori man that actually verbally threatened to "tear down" my tent. Needless to say, I left in a hurry and ended up finding a far better campsite where the people were way nicer.

After a hike around the headlands, a quick dip in the ocean, and an even quicker cold shower, I continued on to Russel in the Bay of Islands. The weather wasn't great. I could see rain coming in on the horizon and obscuring many of the islands from my view from my perch atop flagstaff hill. This was where the British erected a flagpole with their flag and each of 4 times it was hewn down by the local Maori before the Maori themselves put up a flagpole by hand with a British flag to make amends.

I made my way back into the tourist trap of a town where the cheapest excursion costs $89. I went to fill up with petrol, as they call it here, and that's when I met Olivier and Catherina! I saw them sitting with their full backpacks, looking like they didn't know where to go so I offered them a ride. We ended up going to the same campground and talking for hours about where we were from and what we had done so far in NZ. Oli was 26 and came from France while Catherina was 27 and from Germany. Having just finished what I can only assume were their graduate studies, they were traveling around NZ for the next 10 months and had been here one so far. We cooked dinner together in the kitchen at the campsite (the most expensive one to date, but the cheapest one in the area) and it was nice for me to have some company while out on the trail, so to speak.

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Photos

Whangaruru Campsite
This is the windy site that I got kicked out of my the mean Maori man who threatened to "tear down" my tent! It's a great story.

Feeding the Ducks
This is a picture of my hand with bread for the fowl at Puriri Bay.

Puriri Bay
This is the campsite I ended up at after leaving the other (didn't make it for sunset though).

Ithsmus
Pano of the Ithsmus that I had to cross to get out to the Whangaruru Head.

Russel
This is the little tourist trap of a town called Russel.

Bay of Islands
A picture of the rain coming in over the many islands with a sweet ship off in the distance.