The Mole heads to Paihia
Monday, 23 Feb, 2011
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Our Graham resumes his New Zealand blog today, philosophical about the tragic events in Christchurch but keen to describe what this wonderful country has to offer tourists.
Each week of the blog, Tourism New Zealand is offering readers the chance to win a unique Maori bone-carved gift. If you don’t win first time, you can try again next week. The giveaway finishes on March 11. For more details, click here.
So, back to Graham:
“Well we all know about the tragic happenings in Christchurch and to be in a country where such an event has happened is somewhat sobering.
Needless to say, being so close to it all one’s emotions and sympathies lie with the people that have been adversely affected by the whole event. At every bar, café and hotel reception you visit, the talk is of little else. The fact is that life has changed but it must continue.
These past 48 hours, like any good tourist to New Zealand, I have got in a car and driven north.
And perhaps the best description would be to describe what I have NOT seen. I have not seen crowds, litter, traffic, branded fast food restaurants, confrontation, massive supermarkets and a whole host of other things that one would normally associate with a country larger than the UK. But they all appear to be absent.
On the road from Auckland to the Bay of Islands you have the opportunity to visit many national and regional parks that are free to enter, clean, informative, interesting and seemingly devoid of people.
The one we went into, Wenderholm Regional Park, allowed you to swim, picnic, barbeque, kayak and take in some truly spectacular birdlife on a rain forest walk. As I say, these opportunities present themselves about every 30km but the final destination was Paihia, the capital of the Bay of Islands.
Paihia is more like an English seaside resort with lots of hotels, apartments, restaurants, cafes and gift shops. Not immediately appealing, it is, however, home to the widest range of water-based entertainment and trips possible.
The cheapest of these trips is a short ferry ride across the bay to the altogether charming historic town of Russell, famed for its rather rough past when it was a whaling centre but also because it was New Zealand’s first capital.
When we arrived, the local schools from the district were having their annual swimming competition which is held right in the sea next to the village quay. When I say schools I mean children, not dolphins.
If you don’t take a trip out of Paihia to explore the Bay of Islands you will be missing one of the planet’s finest examples of a maritime playground. So confident are the tour operators of seeing schools of, yes, dolphin, they offer a money-back guarantee.
Everywhere you look you can see spectacular island scenery, wildlife and rock formations that are truly wonderful. At one point you actually sail through a “hole in the middle of an island”.
Sounds ridiculous but it is true and very exciting. The thing is that every time you stop and look, walk or swim, something unique and new comes into view and it is truly an experience.
The area is one that you could spend a lot longer than two days in but onwards and upwards (literally). Carry on Mole.”
For more travel information on New Zealand click here
Dinah
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