Quite a long journey up to Paihia today, so stopped a few times to break up the drive. The best stop was in a place called Warkworth to have a walk around the Parry Karui Park. A beautiful tranquil little walk packed with native trees, plenty of bird life too, and of course as the name suggests it boasts quite a few Kauri trees, and a couple of good old specimens too.
On day 2 in Paihia we explored the coastline on the north side, some beaches are a bit difficult to access, but we found a gem called Matouri bay, so enjoyed a few hours of swimming and sunbathing at this beautiful place, then treated ourselves to a drink at a great bar/restaurant called Zane Greys overlooking the bay of islands.
On day 3 we took a little boat ride across the bay to a town called Russell, a delightful little place, lots of buildings that have not been changed since colonial times. It has a rich history going back to the 1800’s. It used to be a whaling town, but is now more well known as a tourist sight. Very pretty and has a fantastic beach too. We then treated ourselves to some drinks at a lovely bar back in Paihia, Zane Greys and then a meal at the Tipsy Oyster, which I would recommend.
Our final day in Paihia was a fairly quiet one. Went to Haruru falls in the morning, only a short car ride, and then just went to the local town beach and chilled there for a few hours. We were going to go to the Waitangi Treaty grounds to learn about New Zealand history and how awful our ancestors were to the local Maori population many years ago. However at $70 pp we didn’t think we were interested enough to spend a lot of time there, and spend that much money. Then some wet weather arrived so packed up early and went for a nice pizza.
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