Tuesday 17th June
The first thing I did when I got up was to pull back the curtains in my room and inspect the mornings weather. Although the skies were still grey, there was no rain and it all looked a little less forboding than the day before, so we got the slight improvement that we had hoped for and it got our spirits up for the day of touring ahead.
In order to get to Waitangi, our first port of call on our trip around the 'Bay of Islands', we had to get the car ferry to Opua and then drive north a little to Paihia. Just outside of Paihia is Waitangi, one of the most historic sites in New Zealand, as it was here in 1840 that representatives of the British government and some of the Maori tribes – the first of whom came to settle in New Zealand a thousand years ago – signed a treaty which amounted to a sort of peace settlement, in the hope that it would put an end to long periods of violence between the two groups, which had started when the first European settlers arrived in NZ. It was an interesting and informative place, well worth a visit and I left knowing a good bit about the origins of modern New Zealand.
We had lunch overlooking the bay in Paihia; the sun had come out and it was now a beautiful, fresh day. We set off in the direction of Kerikeri, and passed by the Rainbow Falls, west of Paihia, which were about twenty metres high and gushing with water (obviously due to the huge downpours we had witnessed since arriving in NZ). We drove futher northwards and took the coastal road towards Tauranga Bay. As we climbed through the hilly countryside and rounded a corner, spectacular scenery greeted us on more than one occasion. I had been told by people who had visited NZ that it was common to have your breath taken by views that suddenly come into sight, and I now knew what this feeling was like. The scenery really was stunning, and the sight of the sun setting over the sea, with the white clouds and pink sky covering the rolling hills creating a scene that was almost unreal to me. NZ was used as the setting for 'The Lord of the Rings' movies and I could see why, as the land below looked like something out of a fantasy.
As it got dark, we made our way back towards Russell, stopping off in Paihia again to have dinner at a restaurant called 'Salt'. Yet again, the food was very good, of a similar quality to what you might get in Australia. I had another early night when we got back to the house as I was intending to be up early the following morning to watch the Italy-France match, thinking that I might as well make the most of the football on the TV while it was available.
