Bay of Islands

Friday the 11th of July was not a great day weather wise, so luckily it was mostly a travel day. I set out early from Tutukaka, before the rain started, my first stop being Matapuri, just a ten-minute drive onward. Here my goal was Whale bay and the Mermaid pools out on the headland, but unfortunately the latter of these had fallen prey to over tourism and the isthmus out there had been declared tapu by the local Iwi. Whale bay though was real nice, a muddy walk through the light rain with some really lovely views out on the turbulent sea.

The view from Whale Bay out over the pacific

Then back in the car for another very short ride, this time to Sandy Bay next door where I went for a quick climb out onto the northern cliffs, over and around a largish rock formation. What followed next was a lot of driving from the increasingly furious rain, combined with a stop for a flat white. Had planned to stop at a museum, but both the ones I had found on the way turned out to be closed. And so our next stop wasn’t until Kawakawa, just half an hour out from Paihia and the Bay of Islands.

Sandy Bay

In Kawakawa my first priority was getting some cash, so as to not repeat my mistakes in Tutukaka. Then I visited the famous and very weird Hundertwasser toilets, made in a surrealistic and bulbous style of mosaics. Apparently the Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser settled down in Kawakawa in his later years, and his strange architecture permeates the whole town. Next up, and quite urgently, was lunch, which I got at the local Kebab place. Rounding off my stop there, I visited a local little curiosity museum, which was absolutely wonderful. Just a tiny little house filled to the brim with everything from pieces of the first Atlantic telegraph cable and great pieces of Kauri gum (looks like fist sized amber), to memorabilia of the local war hero and a captured Nazi uniform.

The Hundertwasser toilets, from the outside

It was still aggressively raining when I arrived in Paihia at my hostel half an hour later, and so I spent the rest of the day indoors planning my next moves, as I had realised the planning I had done was a bit substandard. However, I did pop my head out for a walk along the beach after dark when the rain had let up.

The next day I was up bright and early, and my first port of call was the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where in 1840 the founding document of New Zealand was signed by the British and Maori (in very short it was a treaty that effectively ceded sovereignty to the British, with a significant pinch of misrepresentative translations and later reneging, see here for more details). I had a lovely sunny walk up the beachfront to the treaty grounds, where I popped into the local yacht club and then decided to not enter the actual museum part because of time, and it was spenny. But I did see it very nicely from a distance. Oh, and on the road out there was a flag collection painted on the walkway, including a Swedish one.

Waitangi Treaty Grounds, more specifically the grass field out on the cliff top

Then a fast walk back into town to catch the ferry over to Russell on the other side of the Bay. On the ferry, I met Ian, an American who was also staying at the hostel, and we decided to do Russel together.

Russel was quite a nostalgic experience for me, it was the first town we visited after leaving Te Uenga and setting out on our proper road trip 15 years ago, when the family first travelled New Zealand. I was only just ten back then, but I still very much recognised the Russell waterfront with its trees along the beach road. I spent quite a bit of time here just trying to find and revisit memories from back then, including the tree I climbed and the “Free Wi-Fe” restaurant as dad read it.

Russell waterfront

But I’m getting ahead of myself, our first stop in Russel was a café to have the obligatory Flat White coffee. While there, Ian and I got to know each other at least a little, and also made a rudimentary plan for the day. Which basically included walking to Tapeka Point, the head of the Russell Peninsula. So after finishing our coffee, we started out, out along the beach north of Russell.

The beach quickly turned into the good old cliff scrambling, and after rescuing a lady in need (or rather showing her a way to cross the step cliff if you want to be boring), we made it to the next beach cove where you were supposed to turn up into the forest. But did we, oh no, instead we set our sights on the next beach which meant a lot more cliff scrambling. Relatively fine for me, though I did tear my backpack side pocket on the rock wall when running from the incoming waves, more tricky for Ian. So when we reached a point that would require some serious climbing (or getting proper wet), we turned back. On the way back though, we did have a slippage incident where Ian’s water bottle had to be rescued from a watery grave.

Flagstaff Hill

The walk up through the rainforest was really nice, though also really warm. But in the end we were rewarded with a fantastic view from Flagstaff Hill, another historic location where the Maori and British played a game of cutting down and rebuilding the flagstaff. Then we were finally off towards our real destination, Tapeka Point. Down from the hill, and then off the car road as soon as possible and into the valley on the other side. Lots of native birds, a small lake and a funny “Bridge to nowhere”, plus a bug hotel.

When we left the valley we had arrived in the small and probably absurdly expensive neighbourhood just before the point, and then started our climb. Because Tapeka Point ends in two roughly 100-metre high peaks with great cascading cliffs falling into the blue ocean. The way up was a surreally green hill, and halfway up we found an amazingly curvaceous tree, which we naturally had to climb 😅

Then, when we finally reached the top, we were greeted by an absolutely awedropping view. We could see basically the whole of the Bay of Islands, with a 100-metre drop right in front of where we had our lunch. The brown dirt water of the previous day’s odorous weather meeting the clear turquoise of the open bay. It was a lovely to be able to see out over the islands I had visited so long ago, a wonderful consolation for not being able to go out and see the bay by boat, nor visit Te Uenga again.

Turning back, we made a stop at the beach on the eastern side of the peninsula. And it had a whole in the rock formation, god I love these foreshores shaped by tides. So naturally I had to go out to it. However, I had barely got started when Ian called out, I had accidentally walked within two meters of a sea lion sunbathing on the rocks. A bit spooked, but also delighted, we watched the sea lion for a little bit before leaving it alone, and I climbed out to the whole from the opposite side.

But after that whole thing I was actually really warm in the almost summer feeling weather, so against all rime and reason I went for a swim. Which was actually lovely, quite cold but very refreshing. And only short because I did not trust the very stony beach floor (the temperature did definitely not play in, at all, promise). In the meantime, Ian had found a tyre swing, which I then also had to have a go on. Which was really really fun.

Then, at long last, we headed back to Russell, where our ways split as Ian wanted to grab some more food while I wanted to visit the other side of Russell to see if nostalgia would hit me there as well. On the way over I was hit by some light rain, and while hiding under a tree I had my last sandwich. But another consequence of the rain was that when I got down towards the beach on the eastern side, I was greeted by a magical rainbow.