It's a bay...with Islands!

first view of the bay of islands

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Our first day on the Kiwi Experience bus saw us up at crazy o clock to catch the bus North, to the Bay Of Islands. The region is one of the most traditional and sacred to the Maori people. It is the place where the treaty of Waitangi was signed between Europeans and Maoris ovr 100 years ago.. It still the most important document in New Zealand today, although its since become accepted that the Maoris were swindled by the British, surprisingly.

The town of Pahia was our destination, and we hopped on the bus with about 20 people and our driver, Matty. Before the sun had barely risen we had headed out of Auckland over the harbour bridge for the pretty short drive North. We had a great time in Pahia. It's not what youd call a city, town is even pushing it but its really nice and picturesque, and obviously a lot busier in the summertime.

nice place for a game of golf..right behind me

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the one thing you learn pretty quickly about the Kiwi Experience bus is that there's LOTS to do. Each time you hit a new destination, a new bunch of activities are wheeled out in front of you. Most are pretty extreme - on day one in Pahia we chose to head out into the Bay on the "Excitor" - a damn fast jet powered boat which gets out to the outer islands in a matter of minutes. It was great fun, even with our stomachs in our mouths. We got a tour of the islands for an hour or so, and headed to the hole in the rock - one of the big visitor attractions on the bay. its pretty much as desribed - a hole in a rock - but its cool. you may be able to see from the pics that we went right through it on the boat. Was great fun travelling at breakneck speeds and feeling the spray on your face. We got more of a laugh out of watching a Japanese woman spend the entire tour with her hat over her face as she was, presumably, a bit freaked out by the jet boat. Im sure she got what she paid for anyway.

Aboard the Excitor

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We decided that we would take the day trip a little further north to Cape Reinga the next day - about as far north as we can go.