We got up just before our alarm at 07:30. I had a very poor sleep, as I often do on the first night of a trip, but my wife slept soundly all night. We wandered down the street to the centre of Paihia to find a cafe for breakfast. We grabbed an outside table at Letz Cafe, which had muesli bowls and also smoothie bowls, which was essentially a muesli bowl with the yoghurt replaced with one of their range of smoothies. I chose that and got a smoothie with blueberry and some other fruits in it as my choice, while my wife had the plain muesli. As we were finishing off, my wife’s mother and sister walked past and we said the food was good, so they joined us and ordered some breakfast too.
After eating we returned to our room to prepare for the day out. Our first meeting point was at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, a historical site just a couple of kilometres north up the coastal road. This is where the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand’s history as a modern country, was signed between the native Maori people and the colonial British. We wanted to walk there, but some others took one of the hire cars and we planned to meet there for our guided tour which was booked at 10:00.
On the walk I got a little distracted by spotting several interesting birds, including variable oystercatchers which I tried to get some photos of. We also might have underestimated the walking time, so we ended up arriving with only a couple of minutes to spare. My wife’s eldest nephew checked us in and we joined a large tour group of about fifty or sixty people. The staff gave us earpieces to listen to the tour guide’s commentary, which was good because we ended up a long way from the guide at many points on the tour.
It began with a walk through the gift shop, which I thought was very strange. Then we proceeded outside and down the hill to two large wooden canoes, built in the style of the old Maori canoes, out of kauri wood, and sheltered under a long wooden roof. These canoes seat upwards of a hundred people, and are floated and used for celebrations annually on Waitangi Day, 6 February, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty. The guide explained these are not original historical canoes; because the wood eventually rots they build new ones every few decades.
From here we walked uphill to a grassy area with an expansive view of the Bay of Islands. Here was the Treaty House, the original house occupied by the British Resident minister, James Busby, from 1834. In this in 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was drafted and translated into Maori, before it was signed in a nearby tent on 6 February. I went inside the house to see some of the rooms, including the one in which the Treaty was drafted. The house had magnificent gardens with many flowers in bloom.
Nearby is the Te Whara Runanga, a traditional Maori meeting house, built in 1940 facing the Treaty House to symbolise the Maori side of the Treaty. Here the tour group assembled for a Maori cultural display. We removed our shoes before entering the meeting house. Seated inside we were treated to various traditional songs, dances, chants, and weapon displays by a group of five Maori in traditional costume. The performances were really good, and sprinkled with lively and humorous commentary, really making everyone feel welcome. Following this performance we were left to explore the Treaty Grounds at our leisure.
We parted from the rest of the family, and my wife and I took a walk through a densely grown valley, where there were the two oldest camellia trees in New Zealand, planted in 1833. This led us back to the museum, where we browsed briefly to review the history of Waitangi and see various artefacts, Maori and British, and replicas of several of the original copies of the Treaty itself. (The originals are now kept in the National Library of New Zealand, in Wellington.)
After this we walked back into Paihia to get some lunch. After stopping briefly at our motel room, we found the Cafe 10, where my wife chose a vegetable frittata and I had the pumpkin salad.
After eating, we went to the wharf to get tickets on the ferry to Russell, a village on a long peninsula across the Bay of Islands. We had twenty minutes until the ferry left, and my wife spotted a small arts and crafts market across the street so we went there for a very quick look before retiring to the wharf to catch our ferry. The boat was a lot smaller than I expected, with bench seating for about 50 passengers. On the way across the bay we spotted an Australasian gannet flying alongside us about 50 metres up for a few seconds before turning to plummet straight down into the water, presumably to catch a fish. It surfaced and skimmed along just above the waves for a few seconds before veering off. Unfortunately I didn’t have my long lens on my camera and there wasn’t enough time to switch it to capture this bird.
We arrived in Russell after about 20 minutes crossing the Bay. There were several restaurants and bars along the waterfront and a parallel street with a few shops to explore. After looking around we headed on a walk up Flagstaff Hill to the lookout point and historic flagstaff there. This flagstaff has a long and complex history beginning with the Treaty of Waitangi, and was symbolic of subsequent friction between the British and Maori people. Besides the history of the site, the view from here on the hill was magnificent, with 360° views around the Bay and the surrounding lands.
While I was taking this in and changing camera lenses, my wife spotted a large bird walking up the path and yelled out to me to come look. But but the time I had my camera safely reassembled and dashed over, the bird had vanished into the brush down the hillside. She described it and I figured out it was a weka. I was extremely disappointed not to have seen it myself!
We walked back down the hill via the road rather than the foot track we’d walked up on. There was no footpath between the road and the steep hillside so we had to walk on the road and avoid cars coming up the hill towards us. Once back in Russell we walked along the shore back to the centre of the village. We passed my wife’s older nephew and partner who were sitting at the Duke of Marlborough Hotel having a drink on the beautiful verandah. We waved hi and continued on to look at the last few shops that we hadn’t seen. Then we decided to backtrack to the Duke of Marlborough to get a drink ourselves. The others had gone to walk up Flagstaff Hill. I had a local Kororareka Cream ale, while my wife had a glass of local Pinot gris. Later in the evening, the nephew told us that the Duke of Marlborough was the oldest hotel in New Zealand (established in 1827).
It was good to rest our feet after so much walking around. I spotted a tiny black and white bird flitting in a tree nearby and identified it as a tomtit, but it was too hard to get a photo of. After our drinks, we went to a small ice cream shop where I had scoops of hokey pokey; and fig & manuka honey ice cream. Here we met my wife’s mother and sister, who had also just bought cups of ice cream. We ate them as we walked back to catch the next ferry back to Paihia together. The ice cream was really good. On the trip back I had my long lens ready in case I spotted any more gannets, and I did, although they were much further away. I did manage to get a couple of shots at extreme range but the birds were pretty small in the photos.
Back in Paihia, we went back to the motel. I changed and went for a swim in the pool while my wife did some sketching in her sketchbook of scenes from today. After the swim I had a shower and changed for dinner. Tonight was the special birthday dinner for the eldest nephew and his partner (their birthdays are just 10 days apart).
We met up just before 18:30 and walked the short distance to Terra Restaurant. We had a reserve table on the balcony, looking out over the Bay. The setting was lovely, and the food was really excellent. I had a starter of squid and chorizo with chilli caramel and lemon mayonnaise, followed by a main course of pork kassler with harissa fried cauliflower and white bean puree. And for dessert a Black Forest combination of a chocolate marquise with cherries and cherry sorbet. Everything was delicious.
After this magnificent dinner we walked back to our motel room for the night.