Days 20-21: Paihia

We spent the morning wandering around the Ponsonby neighborhood of Auckland and had a great time lounging in a used bookstore, seeing the shops, and eating a tasty breakfast of meat pies. Thus refreshed, we headed on up to Paihia and the Bay of Islands, in Northland.

The drive was supposed to take about 4 hours, but we took a couple of (intentional) detours to see more of the coast. People have repeatedly said that the south island is much more beautiful than the north island, and that may be true, but the north island is plenty beautiful. Mary and I repeatedly commented that Kiwis must laugh at the audacity of the Ozzies to name a road the Great Ocean Road, since it’s rather similar in most ways (except for the limestone pillars) to the entire coast of New Zealand.

We drove through a remarkable range of terrain, including rain forests, pasture land, marshes, old growth Kauri forest, new growth pine, and occasional small towns. The roads up the coast are almost all single lane, narrowing down to true single lane across bridges and where there are repairs. Most of the roads are tremendously curvy – it’s more a surprise to see a straight stretch than it is to see a long set of S curves. The speed limit is usually set quite high, such that in my rented Nissan Sunny EX-Saloon (similar to a '97 Sentra), it would be difficult to break them. Hairpin turns around the outside of a rock wall have a speed limit of 35 km/hr, a place I’d expect a US speed limit of 10mph. It’s very fun driving, but rather tiring too. Next time we visit, I’d love to rent a Porsche (and stay a lot longer)!

We saw vast number of cows, sheep, horses, goats, and even the occasional deer out to pasture. I was surprised to see nearly equal number of cows and sheep; perhaps we’ll see a greater prevalence of sheep on the south island. Or perhaps all the sheep are hiding in the mountains, rather than in the flat parts along the road, and we'll never see all 40 million of them...

In Paihia, we took out some sea kayaks onto the bay and visited a few of the islands, as well as just laid around and enjoyed being out on the water. Later in the day we walked up to the Treaty House, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and then walked the Haruru Falls track, which cuts through a nice mangrove forest, as well as a Brown Kiwi bird habitat (although we didn’t see any, they being nocturnal). We finished the day off by grilling some local fish on the grill and drinking some local wine – what a day!