New Zealand – Bay of Islands

I left the pooch happily greeting his family and set off on a long drive north in the dark. Arriving at my accomodation (timeshare) I was astounded by the size of it. It has one bedroom and two bathrooms one of which is huge!
I am in a small resort town of Paihia in the Bay of Islands. The first thing I noticed is that its a lot warmer here because it a subtropical region, although is only a three hour drive from Auckland.
On my first day I planned to relax and orientate myself….that didn’t happen, I couldn’t up resist a boat ride around the Islands. The sun was shining the sea blue, can you blame me?

It was a 4 hour trip, the crew were informative and entertaining. On the way out, a pod of 6 or 7 bottle nosed dolphins swam with us for a while apparently sleeping! They shut half their brain down so they can rest, the other half keeps them consciously swimming, breathing and not being mown down by boats! This group have babies in the middle. The video does not do it justice, it was lovely to see.

The trip took us past lots of little and not so little, wooded Islands (144 in total, I remember them all…not really!) Some are privately owned and others managed by the department for conservation. We made our way to Cape Brett Peninsula and the hole in the rock a geological feature.

On route one of the crew gave us a bit of the history about Captain Cooks first landing (It was he who named the Bay of Islands).
I know I gave you a potted history earlier but, I thought I’d share the reason Cooks early attempts at communicating with the Maori didn’t go so well. Cook’s crew lowered their boats and started to row to shore. The Maori thought this terrifying, because as you know we row facing backwards, they thought the crew had eyes in the back of their heads and assumed they were a kind of goblin and so attacked them!
Cook responded by firing a canon! As you can imagine this really improved the situation!
We disembarked on the isle Urupukapuka (the Maori love their vowels) and as we didn’t row or walk backwards we were greeted with big Maori smiles and a strong smell of honey (guessing honeydew again). After a meal I set off to explore a little.
Like many of the islands they are now predator free and part of the ‘Island Song project’, the areas once cleared for farming are becoming forest again. I climbed up and saw this amazing Pohutukawa tree. It has swathes of brush like arial roots. I should love to see it in flower because apparently its bright red!

The New Zealanders have adopted it as a Christmas tree as it flowers in mid summer.

The views were wonderful, then as I wandered back through a little Manuka grove and planted area it was full of birds. I saw Kakariki (little parrot/rosella), tui, Saddleback’s (which are making a come back but, I hadn’t seen any before), whiteheads and a rail. I also saw the usual suspects Fantail, sparrows and swamphen. There are Kiwis on these Islands but as they are nocturnal I didn’t see any.
The journey back was unbelievably spectacular and probably the first proper sunset I’ve seen here. So for Linda who asked for a sunset here it is.