New Zealand -One week tour by car of Northland with Baileys Tours .

After leaving Ruakaka, we went further up North and headed for a famous coastal area on the North East Coast of New Zealand.  The area was called the 'Bay of Islands'  We visited a couple of Holiday Parks on the way to Paihia, before deciding on a holiday park called 'Beachside'. Wow! we thought the other campsite was good, this was smaller  and more pituresque,  just perfect for what we wanted. We hired a cabin again for about $50 dollars per night, this was fully equiped for self catering.(the weather was still a bit unpredictable, so camping was out of the question) We stayed on this site for about 5 nights (the most nights for about 7 weeks where we have stayed in the same place).
I couldn't get Steve to leave as  he now owned a fishing rod and had found a great place to fish. There were also loads of walks to do, two of the walks were straight from the campsite, which led to  the various bays surrounding the coasts and the campsite. One of the walks was to Opua and the other was to Paihia, the views were something else,as you always had a view of the bays, boats, woodland/bush, all of which had massive ferns and  tropical vegetation  It is also the first time we have seen as many board walks. What really gave us the wow factor was we just kept discovering one secluded beach after another. Obviously this is why they call it the 'Bay of islands'

Our home for 5 days on Beachside
Holiday park, Paihia

Steve on the board walk

Campside view

View from Opua

Land of the giants

One of the many secluded beaches- walk from
Opua to Paihia

While we were staying at the 'Bay of islands' we were told by many other travellers that it is a 'must' to go to  the island of Russel.  This island was famous for being the first settlement area in 1825, it had the first pub and church it was also famous for a brothel.  The only way you could get there was by ferry. The population was 1000 people so a fairly small place.

We found the island a bit strange, the locals dressed up every day for the tourists in clothing back to the 18th century, after spending a couple of hours there we were sure that the locals actually felt they were back in the 18th century as when there street stage act finished they were still playing the part.  How strange! We were not totally impressed, we felt the locals perhaps tried a bit too hard to

please the tourists

Two hookers fighting

Over the week we did really well and covered a fair few miles walking, probably covered approx 20 miles  in total. The Waitangi walk was good, there were some really good views and  the waterfall was impressive.

Maouri boat, on the river durng our walk to  Haruro Falls

Haruro Falls

We have continuously found the  people from New Zealand really freindly and welcoming.

 This week has been a good time to catch up, doing the things we hoped we would do, lots of walking(certainley covered a few miles), reading and fishing. 

The Bay of Islands have spectacular views, and has been well worth the visit.  It will take a bit of beating

After leaving the Bay of Islands we travelled on the west coast heading for the top of Northland, which was famous for its 90 mile beach.  The journey should have taken two hours, but instead it ended up about three and a half hours due to a sat nav, that we no longer trust. We spent quite some time on scenic routes, which had nice views , but the paths were unsealed gravel paths, sometimes no wider than a household driveway. Some of the bends were quite scary, apparently one of the roads had been used for the Northland car rally the day before. When finally getting to the 90 mile beach we did not stick around too long as it was fairly cold.  There were a few surfers on the beach, not something we wanted to venture into as the water looked a bit nippy.

We decided at this point we were not going to venture up to Reigna, this is the bit on the map that looks like a steeple.  This was a dead end road, and looked very flat and sandy. We don’t think we will have missed alot

The plan was to tour the west cost and take the scenic route, this was our choice not the sat nav.  It was a great drive until the road came to an end. On the map it looked like a bridge, but it was a car ferry which only crossed the sea every hour.  We continued down the cost and ended up in kaouri forest where we found the biggest tree on the southern hemisphere, it was very impressive.  The photo didn’t do it justice unfortunately.

We continued down the coastal road  looking for camps as it was getting dark, late and raining we found one quite aptly called’ Bayley’s Beach’, which was ok for an overnight stop, again it was a surfers paradise , similar to the 90 mile beach, but was only 6 miles long.

The next morning we set back off towards Auckland and stopped at a place called Matakhoie to shorten the journey. This was a nice holiday park, we were the only people staying so we had a good choice of accommodation.  We stayed in a nice little detached cottage.  This was perfect as the heavens opened with rain that evening, glad once again we were not in a tent. We got up the  following day and headed for the Auckland Airport to fly to the South Island, Christ Church where we were ready for our next tour of the southern Island for a month. The flight worked out much cheaper than by car and ferry. Now we are looking forward to seeing South Island.

90 mile beach

Kauri Tree

We have really enjoyed North Island, but we are equally as excited about visiting the South Island as so many people that we have met during our travels have told us how much we will enjoy the South Island.