After a very rainy night (with noisy thunder & lightning) in Pukenui, we took the coast road to Paihia. Paihia is in the middle of the area called the Bay of Islands. As we saw on a cruise (supposedly a dolphin cruise, but someone forgot to inform the dolphins!), there are a great many pretty islands in this bay.
Because we made better time from Pukenui than expected (and we were expecting to go to Cape Reinga this morning instead of yesterday afternoon), it was too early to check into our B&B. We chose to go to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The Treaty of Waitangi was the treaty signed on these grounds by the Maori with the British to basically bring New Zealand under the crown. What we learned on our tour of the grounds is that the Maori didn't sign the same version of the treaty as did the British. When the Treaty was being translated into Maori, the gentleman doing the translation told the British Governor Hobson that the Maori wouldn't sign this treaty. The Governor told him to write a treaty that the Maori would sign. In other words, lie. (If you want to read more, the Wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi) However, the treaty differences are still causing problems to this day.
The grounds are beautiful and we had the opportunity to see the original New Zealand flag, based on the United Tribes of New Zealand. The British Governor's house is still on the grounds and there is also a traditional Maori meeting house (a wharenui), with the carved panels on the front of the house and inside on the walls. In the meeting house we enjoyed a show of Maori songs and a display of weapons.
After checking into our B & B, we took a ferry ride over to Russell. Russell was the original capitol of New Zealand and was once called the "hell hole of the pacific." It's a small town and there were reputed to be 30 bars and 30 brothels. Sounds about right for a busy port town! Once the capitol was moved to Auckland (and later, to Wellington) all the money went and trade went with it. Now Russell would like to be known as "Romantic Russell," according to the captain of our dolphin cruise. On the good captain's advice, we had a beer in the bar of the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, the oldest licensed pub in New Zealand.
The next morning we awoke to enough sunshine to convince us to take the aforementioned dolphin cruise. We made quick work of our breakfast while our hostess booked our cruise. We had problems with parking, so I sent Kent ahead to hold the cruise a few minutes for us. I found a 4-hour parking spot and hoped we wouldn't get ticketed while we were gone. It was a good thing I sent Kent ahead! He and one of the crew were waiting for me to huff and puff my way to the boat. We got on our way as soon as I was aboard. The sun seemed to shine even brighter while we were trolling for dolphins in the bay. It turned into a gorgeous day. We saw plenty of pretty, pretty little islands (and some not so little) and had the good fortune for seas that allowed the captain to take the boat through the Hole in the Rock. We have some photos of the "Captain's Eye View" going through the rock. What a great ride! We didn't see dolphins, but some seals made an appearance, along with sea birds. And we saw another lighthouse, Judy! Okay, it's no longer manned (there are no manned lighthouses left in New Zealand) and the light comes from somewhere other than the lighthouse itself, but we saw a lighthouse!
On our way back we left the boat at Russell and walked around some more. One of the places we visited was the Pompallier Mission. I wanted to see it because it was the first printing press in New Zealand. And it still works! The Catholic church sent Bishop Pompallier to New Zealand to work with the Maori. Bishop Pompallier learned Maori in six months (an incredible feat in itself) and then started translating Catholic texts into Maori, getting them typeset, printed and then gave the books to the Maori for free. He ran the mission on a shoestring and they made the best of everything they could. Bishop Pompallier was present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The building housing the small printing press and the bookbinding process are all that are left of what was a crowded site. It was so neat to see all the aspects of printing, especially the bookbinding. We saw a film of bookbinding by hand in Ireland last year at the Book of Kells exhibit, so it was a fun turn to actually see what they showed us on film. On the other side of the planet...
