Bay of Islands

Finally, real, honest to goodness land appeared on the horizon.  Our Pacific Ocean crossing was complete.  Michael and I woke early Thursday morning to see the headlands of the Bay of Islands on the horizon.  It took a few minutes of staring before I convinced myself that I was seeing substantial land as opposed to another hunk of rock with a reef around it.  The sight of the iconic "hole in the rock" was convincing proof that this was indeed the Bay of Islands.

The sum shone and the temperature was in the comfortable mid seventies.  Silver Whisper anchored well out in the bay.  The tender ride to shore at the Waitangi Wharf took more than the advertised half hour.  Almost a hundred passengers piled aboard the tender.  The helmsman backed us away from the ship.  Suddenly there was a lot of back and forth radio chatter.  The Staff Captain, second in command of the ship, appeared in the tender bay and ordered us to await a safety officer.  Even though the helmsman had piloted a tender ashore to the Waitangi Wharf many times, new regulations require that a safety officer be the first to bring a tender ashore in a new port: another consequence of the wreck of the Costa Concordia.

Eventually the other ship's tender appeared around the Whisper's bow.  Some minutes of maneuvering passed and a safety officer jumped from one tender to the other.  He displaced the helmsman at the controls and piloted us to shore as per the new regulations.

Waitangi Wharf sits in isolation by the Waitangi Yacht Club and a now dowdy upscale hotel, at the entrance to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.  The area is a National Trust site commemorating the 1840 treaty between the Maori chieftains and the British that established New Zealand as a British colony and ultimately a nation.  The wharf is scenic in the extreme. Shuttle buses waited to take us across a narrow one-lane bridge to the very touristy town of Paihia. 

The New Zealand summer holiday runs from Christmas through January.  Paihia was full of tourists from all over New Zealand and Australia celebrating the last week of their summer break.  Tour buses filled the street.  Mobile homes and vans filled the parking lots a block from the main street.  A helicopter took off and landed every ten to fifteen minutes taking tourists "flightseeing" around the bay.

Michael and I paused briefly to view the artisanal merchandise on sale in tents on the village green then set out to hike to the top of a scenic overlook nearby.  Less than a block from the main road, we were essentially alone.  Paihia is a very small place with few streets inland from the shore shops and beaches.  Half a mile from the shore, we were in wilderness.  We walked up School Street, past the Paihia School, many bed and breakfasts and rental cottages and came to the head of a well-marked hiking trail. 

The trail began in a boggy area, full of plants I had never seen before and soon climbed steeply.  We walked through trees, giant ferns and bushes that were totally unfamiliar.  An hour of strenuous exercise and we arrived at a lookout point where we could see our ship in the bay and could view islands in various shades of green dotted all about.  We couldn't linger because we had to be back at Waitangi Wharf by 12:30 PM to take our scheduled tour.  As we exited the trail, we passed two young New Zealanders starting the walk.  The woman was wearing flip-flops and the young man was barefoot.  Michael made a comment about his lack of footwear and the young man said he was wearing "Samoan sandals."  New Zealanders really are not afraid of anything but apparently do not think highly of Samoans.  Then again, no one in the Pacific seems to think highly of Samoans.

Our tour of the Kawiti Glow Worm Caves and Kawakawa actually took us in a large circle east, south, west and back north to Paihia.  We saw the glowworms as we walked through the cave, a private, family run operation by descendants of a Maori warrior chief. The ceiling and walls are occupied by tens of thousands of unique creatures that emit a blue green light. 

During a scenic drive from the cave during which we saw a Maori burial grounds and our first emu in the wild, we stopped in the small town of Kawakawa.  Originally established as a coal-mining town, it developed into a tourist destination after the mines shut down.  An immigrant named Handwasser built a bizarre public toilet that looks as if Art Deco met Salvador Dali. The toilets and an excursion train down the middle of the street draw visitors who Michael says are easily amused from all over New Zealand.

The tour continued west and north through the countryside and through some small towns hard hit by the closing of a dairy processing plant and a meat packing plant.  The North Island of New Zealand raises dairy and beef cattle.  Consolidation and modernization have led to high unemployment.  Modern plants are fewer in number and hire fewer workers per plant.  Our bus driver, formerly a local welder, hopes that expansion of the timber industry will bring jobs back to the area.

The last stop on our tour was at the Haruru Falls.  This was a miniature Niagra-like waterfall by the bridge at Haruru Road.  We all piled out of the bus and took pictures. I think it is the largest waterfall on the North Island.