Adventures in Northland

It was dawn on Wednesday June 14th and I was quietly trying to gather all my belongings from Auckland’s youth hostel. I met Skye downstairs and we took the InterCity bus up north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. We were off on an adventure.

The reason the area is called the Bay of Islands is because there are 144 islands. Many are very small though and look more like a rock than an island to me.

We arrived around lunchtime but before grabbing something to eat, we walked to our hostel and dropped off our stuff. This hostel hosted far less people than the one in Auckland and the rooms were much nicer. Our room only had one other person staying in it which was an added bonus.

We walked into town and found a cafe to stop at for lunch. Over breakfast burritos, we tried to decide what we were going to do on that day and the next one. After some thought, we realized we had the time now to visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds which would be hard to do tomorrow given the other activities we wanted to get to. The next challenge was to actually find a way to get there. There are no Ubers in Paihia so I tried calling cab companies but they kept being located in the nearby town of Kerikeri. At one point, I called the same guy twice in a row by accident which was a bit awkward. I had performed my whole speech about where we needed to go and from where and he was like “you just called me.”

Eventually we just went to the info center and they called a cab for us. The only hiccup was the cab would only take cash so we had to then run and find an ATM. But we acquired the cash and made it to our hostel for our cab pickup on time. Whew! We arrived at the treaty grounds with plenty of time to look around the museum before the tour.

During the tour, we got to learn a lot about Māori culture. We visited a huge Māori war canoe carved out of huge redwood trees. The boat fit 120 people but only required 80 to row. The other 40 were there to switch in when others got tired.

At the end of the tour, there was a Māori cultural performance. It was a lot like the one we saw at the Māori village back during orientation. The purpose of the event was to show through the performance some of the Māori customs and songs. It was a special experience.

After the tour, Skye and I walked around the grounds a bit ourselves before walking back to town. The reason we taxied earlier was because of the time crunch and being unsure if the road was walkable. Turns out it was so walking back was trivial.

Back at the hostel, we met our new roommate. He is a kiwi man traveling all around the country. He’s been on the road for eight months while doing his freelance architecture work. Super nice guy!

After chilling for a bit, Skye and I ventured back into town and dined at a restaurant/bar/butchery/gift shop called “Bad Habits”. And of course, we had to get Mocktails.

The following morning, we were able to sleep in a bit because our ferry was scheduled for 10:00am. In the kitchen, while preparing breakfast, I talked to our roommate. He is apparently trying to get a job for the next few months at the motel next door. I love this dude. He’s just bopping around doing whatever. We rode the ferry to Urupukapuka Island, one of the 144 islands in the bay. The ferry that took us was also taking people who signed up for a tour of the Bay of Islands so we got to mooch off of some of the tour narration at a discounted price.

On Urupukapuka, we walked around much of the island and stopped at a scenic spot for lunch. Here are some pictures from the island.

We loaded back onto the ferry full of the tourists returning from their day at sea. At one point on the ride home, the captain spotted a little blue penguin swimming but we couldn’t really see it. Instead of getting off at Paihia, we got off in Russell, a little town close to Paihia. It apparently used to be known as “The hell hole”. Today, it is just a small town that people seem to enjoy. We walked around, looked for souvenirs, ate some pies, and walked up flagstaff hill to see a pretty view of the area. At the top, a woman running a Mini Tour was standing near her van and said “There are many ways down. I’m sure you’ll find one that suits you” which I found quite ominous.

We took the quick ferry from Russell to Paihia and then walked to yet another short hike with a pretty view. Unfortunately, the view wasn’t pretty at all. It was all blocked by trees so we weren’t even sure why it was advertised online as a lookout. At this point, our legs were dead and we returned to our hostel.

Everything about our trip thus far had been working like clockwork so it was only logical that something unexpected would happen and of course, it did. Our tour to Cape Reigna, the northernmost point of New Zealand, scheduled for tomorrow, had been cancelled because of “weather and not enough people signing up”. We were sad. It was going to be so cool to see the very top on New Zealand.

We didn’t give up though. I went to the hostel front desk and asked if there were any other tours that went there. There weren’t. However, the man at the front did say a Canadian living in Room 15 was going up there tomorrow in her own car. So, Skye and I crafted a note and left it in the woman’s door. I also joined a Paihia Facebook group to see if anyone on there had an idea.

We decided to go to dinner and over seafood chowder, we brainstormed more ideas. We tried basically everything. We considered taxis to a closer city and then driving or hiring someone to take us the whole way, etc but that was all expensive and unrealistic. It seemed too much for me to drive (6 hours round trip) given the remote nature and my inexperience driving on the other side of the road. When we got back to the hostel, the note we left was gone and we knocked on that woman’s door. I asked her, “Did you see our note? We totally understand if not, etc” and she was like “I think you got the wrong Canadian.” This woman was not going to Cape Reigna.

As all of our hopes and dreams were getting destroyed (looking back, it wasn’t as big a deal as it felt then hahah), our lovely roommate who had moved out today into his own single (he sure deserved one after 8 months on the road) gave us a huge box of New Zealand chocolates. He had bought them specially for us, his roommates of one night. We were touched.

We went back to the front desk to just look at the brochures to see what else we could do tomorrow and that man who works there came out to the counter so we talked to him for a bit about our plans but he was kind of in a grouchy mood. For instance, when I asked if the “roads were hard” as a way to try and gauge how it might be for me to drive here given the complications of being on the other side of the road from what I’m used to, he responded, “They’re so hard you can bounce a tennis ball on them”. I couldn’t work with this man.

Anyway, we eventually decided to rent a car and explore some places nearby because I didn’t want to try and drive to Cape Reigna because of how far away it was and having such a big driving goal would be stressful given my inexperience on the left side. There wasn’t really much to do left in Paihia so renting a car was really the only way to experience something new.

In the morning, I called the rental car company to order our car. I asked if they would charge more because I was 21 (they do charge more in the US when you are under 25) and his response was “No, no, that’s a lovely age”.

So, we got ready for the day, waited for the car to arrive and ventured out on the road. Skye was in charge of the GPS, reminding me to stay on the left (she luckily didn’t need to do this) and tell me if I was too far to her side of the road (she did need to do this). I was in charge of the driving! First stop on our roadtrip was a big waterfall.

Next up, we went to KeriKeri to do some woodwork gift shopping. You could see the workshop where they made the gifts in back which was cool. Next door to that was a chocolate factory so naturally we went there too and enjoyed some samples and bought some chocolates. I got orange slices dipped in chocolate and let me tell you, they were YUM!

We then drove up north a bit and hiked up St. Paul’s rock. It was a short hike in Whangaroa Harbour but it was scary at points, mainly when I had to pull on a chain to get myself up a steep rocky section. Whangaroa was an extremely unpopulated area that seemed to be mainly a fishing village. There were huge traps set up in the water.

We ate the top of the rock and a fantail joined us. Then it started to rain and we made our way back down. I tell you, going down that rocky bit with the chains and rain was kind of the scariest thing but I survived!

After that, we drove on across very long dirt roads, to get to some big redwood trees. Some of them were quite big! These pictures don’t really demonstrate it well.

That was our final attraction on our roadtrip so we returned to Paihia, filled up the gas tank and decided to stop at the beach. I flew my drone and got some nice images! Then, I ran back to the car, hit my head on a tree branch and fell down. How ironic. I was worried about driving the car but I hurt myself running. Luckily, I had no concussion symptoms and it seemed I was gonna be alright so we drove back to the hostel.

I called up the rental car company and we went outside to return the car key and then we headed off to dinner. We ate at another nice restaurant near the harbour. Having ordered, I checked my phone and noticed I had a voicemail. It was the rental car company saying that I had given them my room key not the car key. They said they left the room key at the hostel front desk and I could exchange it for the car key. Now, this did not help my anxiety about having a concussion. This situation felt exactly like something a concussed person would do.

I left dinner briefly to exchange the keys before the desk closed. When I got to the desk, I had to deal with that annoying man at the counter. I explained I was the guy that gave the wrong key and we did the exchange. As I left, I said “I don’t know how that happened” to which he said, to his customer, me, “I do. You were stupid.”

What a sweetheart.

I returned to the restaurant and our dinners had arrived. We had both ordered the ravioli and it was pretty tasty but there wasn’t much of it. That night at the hostel, we had a new roommate from the Netherlands. He’s been all around New Zealand very extensively. And guess where he is going tomorrow? Cape Reigna. Honestly, I would have loved to go there but what we did was pretty awesome and we saw a lot of amazing things so the day was a real success. I was quite proud of how well we pivoted.

Tomorrow, we head back to Wellington for my final few days on the other side of the world.