9th April and here we are in the North Island and a new adventure begins. Our shortest flight of the trip saw us take just 75 mins to get from Christchurch to Auckland, roughly the same time it took us to get from the Airport to our hotel.

A great bus service door to door and our first hotel for quite a few days. Freshen up and then we are out on the streets to explore another City. First impressions are that Auckland looks a very tired City. Fabulous old buildings still standing but now with tacky storefronts in many cases.

We headed for the harbour but even here things are not really buzzing. The cloud shape hospitality type building (constructed for the Rugby World Cup) is one side of the harbour whilst the other side is a Hotel built on a wharf in the style of a cruise ship.

This does look quite cool and is for when a cruise ship arrives and the passengers disembark along enclosed gangways from ship to hotel. Can they tell the difference I wonder?

All along the main street there are people down on their luck begging, not something (on this scale)that we have seen on this trip so far. 

Auckland is ace for shopping so we partake a bit then have a CountDown (supermarket) lasagne for tea with a bottle on NZ red whilst watching the rugby on TV back in our room.

Sunday we head for the harbour and onto the ferry for a nice harbour cruise which stops at Rangitoto Island. The youngest Volcanic island around this area just 600 million years old. 

Once back at the harbour we jump on another ferry to Devenport, a seaside town with a naval museum and lots of walks and country village style restaurants and shops. No fast food outlets allowed here (just like Frinton back home). The main problem is that it is pouring with rain so it’s hard to get anywhere, we settle for lunch and after Pete visits the local cycle store to buy a new jersey, we head back to Auckland.

Another first for the trip is that, we go to the cinema. The film is called ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ and features Sam Neal. It is absolutely hilarious and has great New Zealand scenery as well.

Monday 11th dawns and it’s time to hit the road again with a campervan. This time we get a Mercedes Sprinter conversation and it drives more ‘car like’ than the ‘van like’ VW. The van is also newer, very well equipped but, also slightly smaller and being crammed with extras, very cramped. ‘Excuse me’ echoes around the van constantly 🙂

The roads in the North Island are much busier, not much chance of relaxed driving here I doubt. We get in a solid drive Monday afternoon, north, to the Bay of Islands and stay at Paihia. The Scenery takes a bit of time to get going and we are quite a way into the trip before those famous rolling green hills roll into sight (again no Hobbits to be seen!)

A decent campsite and it’s a cosy meal in the van before we try and construct the cushions together for our bed. It’s a bit of of a German jigsaw puzzle!

Tuesday dawns sunny and after a chilled breakfast we head just up the road to Waitangi, treaty Island. This is the place where the Maori nation signed their treaty, (well 42 Chiefs signed the treaty) with her majesty’s Government. History tells the story and still today the treaty is the subject of debate.

An excellent guide showed us around and gave a good introduction to Maori culture. This was followed by a presentation of dance and song which ended with the Haka, always impressive!
We then had a wander around the place at our own pace to wind up a lovely morning.

Lunch by the seashore was followed by our first North Island Bush walk from Paihia up to a lookout of the bay.

Wednesday is a grey road day as we start the journey down the island with stops at the impressive Haruru Falls and later in the day the even more impressive Whangarei Falls. This was interspersed with a visit to the Kawakawa vintage railway station where, it was not a train day, but the station cafe has excellent coffee on the go so all’s well.

Highway 1 is the main road of the day but we slipped on and off of it through the countryside and via some coastline and saw some of the towns and villages off the beaten track. We arrived in Orewa around 5.30pm. This is quite a large seaside town but, we are in off season, all the campsites are fairly quiet just the travellers on the road.

Tonight we chatted to a lady on the last night of her travels after leaving her home town of Chicago seven months ago!

We head for Coromandel tomorrow.