Goodbye NZ

---

Part 7 25/02/07 - 28/02/07 Sailing the Bay of islands

We headed north all day, stopping only for lunch with a view over some ancient volcanic peaks, one of which, according to our map was used as Mount Doom in the recent Lord of the Rings films.

Russell & The Bay of islands was beautiful, and the weather held for our sailing trip right until we disembarked when the black skies finally caught us. We sailed all day on a privately owned boat - Phantom, in a small group. I took the helm for a large chunk of the day as the skipper seemed happy enough with my minimal sailing experience. We moored up for lunch alongside one of the islands where we could swim to shore (or take the RIB) and wonder around, dodging the sheep, up to a magnificent viewpoint. We spotted a grey fin in the water, which I assumed to be a dolphin but turned out to be rather a large shark swimming around in the area where I had just been swimming back to the boat. The captain had been sailing the Bay of Islands for 15 years and never seen a shark inside the bay so it was quite a surprise for everyone!!

Wandering round Russell it was impossible to imagine the town’s colourful history as the ‘Hellhole of the Pacific’ full of prostitutes, ship deserters, ruffians and all kinds of lawlessness!! The town grew as a whaling station and was once even the capital of NZ, before Auckland and then Wellington. NZ’s oldest surviving church in perfect white weatherboards still bares bullet holes from an 1845 siege on the town by Maori leader Hone Heke. We circled the church, spotting a few holes, which we assumed were the famous bullet holes, although we weren’t convinced!!

We had taken a small passenger ferry across to Russell, so heading back to Auckland we decided to take the old Russell road that follows the coastline. This was some road to drive in the big camper van - I’m sure that it would be a lot more fun on a motorbike or in a sports car. It was the most winding part of our journey in the camper for sure. Just north of Auckland, we stopped on Orewa beach and flew our toy kite. New Zealand is a great place for kites, being such a windy country. We managed to let out the entire string and our kite became a tiny dot, high over the ocean. We thought that the wind might steal it from us and send it off into the blue, but eventually we reeled it back in successfully.

We walked the streets of Auckland on our final day, from the Sky Tower down to the hundreds of sailing masts at Princes wharf and back, choosing souvenirs and gifts and then finally handed our camper van back in one piece (they told us that 30% come back damaged!!) en route to the airport. It was strange handing over what had become our home for the last 3 weeks but the tropical island of Fiji beckoned…

---