RUSSELL!

On the 3^rd we said good by to Wangarei and head north to Paihia, the tourist of tourist towns. When we arrived the shear number of hotels, motels, hostels, souvenir shops and eateries hit us. It really it’s the tourist of tourist towns. After getting a bit of information on the overpriced cruses and sail trips we made our way to our hostel. The intriguingly named pickled parrot, it look a bit run down but had a nice homely feel and we have begun to warm to it and with free breakfast and WIFI I’m not complaining, oh no sir. In the afternoon we decide to visit the Waitangi treaty grounds, just a short walk from here. They are a pretty important place in the history of New Zealand, were the Maori and British first landed and where modern day NZ was born. The place its self gave a sort of national trust vibe, somewhere you would go for the day take a nice picnic and play a bit of cricket (rugby round here) on the lawn. But on a drizzly Monday afternoon it didn’t really give that wow factor but still was nice to visit. Afterwards we diced to take a ‘stroll’ to another waterfall. It turned out to be a 2hr walk through the bush and along a rather cool bored walk through the mangroves in the pouring rain. But the Haruru falls were the real deal so worth the very wet walk. On the way back we took the road route, which took us half the time so although a bit scarier (we survived) worth it in my books. The following day the sun had finally found his hat, he’s not on to be rushed and it was a glorious day. So we took the ferry across the bay to New Zealand’s first capital, Russell. Now-a-days it’s a rather pictures tourist town. When we arrived we took the low tied path round the coast, the fact that the tide was is in irrelevant, it just made it a bit more interesting. Eventually we made it to the bottom of the assent to flag-hill the appropriately name hill that had had its flag poll shopped down 4 times, with one such shopping resulting in a wee war. The view from the top was rather spectacular looking out across the hole of the bay of island and made me wonder why you would pay so much for a cruise as you could see it all from there and the only thing you’d gain from being out on the water would be a view of more water, but hay each to their own. From hear we strolled back into the town and went to visit NZ oldest church ‘Christ Church’ a rather dainty little building with your standard church set out inside but with a rather cool half circle communion rail round the alter and some of the nicest benches iv ever had the pleasure to sit in in the garden. For lunch it was going to be sarneys but we forgot them so had pizza, chips and crabstick on the beach with a couple of bruskies.  After lunch we went via zigzag street to long beach a very nice horse shoe shaped beach which stretched for a fairly long way, but we managed to walk it within an hr so cant have been that long. In the evening we explored the rocks on the cost line and found a few cool coves before watching the not-as-impressive-as-we’d-hoped sun set before getting the ferry back to the hostel for dinner and bed.