Paihia - a really cute little beach town

Editor's Pick Award

Our Editors awarded this travel blog entry for providing relevant information that may be useful and inspiring for other travelers.

So we set off from Auckland, with Colin.  He was kinda funny, but tried a little too hard.  After a couple of hours we stopped in a little cafe for some coffee, since it had been a very early start.  We got on the road again, with Colin pointing out things of interest along the way.  Sure enough, the scenery was incredible, like something out of a movie.  (Actually it is out of a movie, but that's for later.)  I was surpised at how untouched so much of the land was, with vast areas of forest and shrubs, extending as far as the eye could see.  The forest appears almost primeval, with palm trees emerging between the native trees.

We stopped again in another town an hour or two down the road, where there was a museum all about Kauri trees.  We didn't go in.

Another few hours down the road, we stopped for a look at Tane Mahuta, the "God of the Forest", the forest being Waipoua.  It was a pretty big tree, but let's not forget that we had been in the Big Tree National Park (or something like that) in the States, so we've seen some BIG trees.  But this one was pretty big.

We also stopped off in another little coastal town called Opononi, where they had a cute little story about a dolphin that used to swim up to the shore, but had been killed.  Colin made us try some famous Kiwi 'Hoki Poki' ice cream, which is basically vanilla ice cream with toffee pieces in it.

After that, our only other stop was at a waterfall.  Colin was most unimpressed that I had been sleeping on the bus - it's a good job he didn't see my reaction at the waterfall.  Maybe we should have seen it before we went to Iguassu.

Aside from the countryside, the Hoki Poki ice cream, the "World famous in New Zealand" L&P drink, there is one matter on which Kiwis are passionate about, even more so than rugby.  And that's the possum.  Introduced to the islands by - you guessed it - the Poms, who decided that New Zealand needed a fur trade, the possum is now the number one pest in the country.  It eats birds' eggs, including those of the endangered kiwi, and strips trees so bare that they die.  Apparently, when Captain Cooke arrived here, he wrote about the deafening dawn chorus.  It's weird walking through the forests here, because you do actually notice the silence, and the lack of birdsong.  The other sad irony about the possum is that they don't actually eat birds' eggs in Australia, just here, where they are really struggling to keep the kiwi alive.  But that's enough of my rant.  I think hanging round with Kiwis is beginning to rub off on me...

So anyways, we eventually arrived in Paihia, and checked in.  After a quick shower, I came out to find a very puzzled Mike looking at a guy crossing the carpark towards us.  "I'm sure we've met that guy somewhere before", he told me, although I figured that maybe he just looked like a famous person.  But then I began to recognise him as well.  "Excuse me", I said (I'm so polite), "we're trying to figure out where we've met you before."  As soon as he opened his mouth I figured it out, and was only a little bit embarrased when he replied "I was playing pool with you all the night before last." 

That afternoon we headed into the town to get some groceries, go on the net, and have a look around.  We had signed up for the barbecue, so went back to the hostel for that at 7.  We were sitting around chatting other travellers, when Colin came and sat with us.  We had decided that he was in fact pretty annoying, but after chatting him for a bit, he wasn't really that bad.  Poor Colin.

We headed out to another bar in town to play some pool, and who should be at the pool tables only Greg and Sean (I later found out that he spells his name 'Shawn', but that's not a real name, so it's not going down here).  So we spent the evening playing pool and having a right laugh with those boys.  The club was actually really good, and was showing the videos to some really cool old songs.

The others left early, but Greg, Sean and I stayed till the place closed.  It was cool to be able to walk back to the hostel by the beach, although unlike Ilha Grande, the beach didn't actually form the main street here, although it wasn't far off it.

The next day we got up early for our boat trip, the 'Day in the Bay' cruise.  It was awesome.  We were sailing along, and about 20 mins into the trip, I saw my first dolphin.  It was amazing.  And it wasn't just a little glimpse, it did a proper jump out of the water.  Cool.  Within seconds, we were among a pod of what the skipper estimated to be over 100 dolphins, all swimming and jumping around the boat.  It really was incredible.  Apparently the average size of a pod is only in the few dozen, so we were very lucky to see so many.  Unfortunately though, there was a baby in the pod, so we weren't going to be allowed to swim with them.  Gutted.  It was brilliant though, we all stood around the boat looking down at the water, where dolphins would swim and jump in unison in groups of two or three, in perfect synchronisation.  I've never seen anything like it.

After about a half hour of watching them, and frantically snapping them, we had to head off, so the boat sped up, allowing us to watch them surf under the front of the boat, since it pushed the water forward as it sailed.  That was ace.  The dolphins would surf just below the surface, jumping up every so often, much to the enjoyment of all the passangers on the boat.  It was great.

We had given up hope of being able to swim with them, when the skipper informed us that he had heard of one solo dolphin that had been spotted further out in the water.  So he set off, and we all got ready into our wet suits, flippers and snorkels.  Luckily, we didn't get too many photos of that.

We found the lonesome dolphin, and were instructed to jump off the side of the boat into the net below.  The water, we were told, was about 16 degrees, so it was a good job there was a dolphin in there.  As it turned out, it wasn't that cold.  When given the ok, about 25 of us swam out of the net, and off in search of the dolphin.  Having not used flippers or a snorkel before, I found them quite difficult to get used to, and spent most of the first five minutes trying to get the hang of that rather than looking for any dolphin.  But after that, there was a lot of swimming, chasing and searching, but not so much interacting with the dolphin, like we had been hoping for.  I noticed one guy who constantly seemed to be near to the right spot, so I decided to stick with him.  It paid off, the two of us being on several occaisions within a metre or so of the dolphin, but never quite within reach.  Antisocial bloody dolphin, no wonder he was swimming on his own.

The skipper called us in after about 20 mins or so, and we all piled back into the net, and climbed up the ladder.  I hadn't exactly been prepared for the day (I had been a little hazy when I woke up), and hadn't actually brought a change of clothes with me.  Oops.  I dried off as best I could, and sat upstairs drying off my shorts on the seat.  It was a gorgeous day, the rest of which we spent sailing around the many islands.  We went through the apparently world famous Hole in the Rock, which, as the name suggests, is a massive hole in a massive rock, that you can sail through, caused I think by tectonic movements and erosion.  That was kinda cool.  We stopped off at another island for lunch, and the three of us lay on the grass by the beach, ate our sandwiches, and contemplated life.  It was that kind of a day.

Back on the boat, we sailed around more islands, some with a very bloody past, others were just really nice isolated little cove residences.  It was really cold at times on the boat though, despite the sun, and we were constantly taking off then putting back on layers.  Eventually, we decided to go below deck.  It was a decision we later wished we had made much earlier on since, as we had been in a hurry in the morning and had forgotten to bring sun cream, on getting off the boat at about 4, we realised we had very, very red faces.  Especially me.  Not a good look.

We headed back to the hostel, where we got laughed at by pretty much everyone we knew, and even some people we didn't.  Rick arrived off the bus, and he and Mike headed off on a walk around the bay.  Nikki and I headed to the internet cafe for a bit, and when we got back were ready for tea.  The boys had decided to go for the bbq at the hostel again, but Nikki and I had our sensible heads on, and decided to go for the cheap and cheerful burger offer we had been told about in town.  That was a mistake.  I guess it's all you can expect from a burger that cost the equivalent of about a pound, but it was made all the worse when we returned to the hostel to find that the boys had had their bbq for free.  Stupid boys.

We had a few drinks at the hostel that night, then headed back to the club with the pool tables.  There had been advertisements for a wet tshirt competition there that night, and Greg had said that for the NZ$500 prize, he would enter - as the only boy in the competition, he was bound to win.  Imagine our surprise when he chickened out of it.  It was a good night though, again spent playing pool and having a laugh.

Next morning was check-out day, so we were up and out by (about) 10.  We had some brekkie, watched a few episodes of The Simpsons, then headed into town.  We had a little wander by the beach, then the others decided to get some food before the journey.  We stopped in a little fish and chip place by the beach, and they had what Nikki described as the best fish she'd ever had.  Pretty good then.

Back to the hostel, we waited round for the Magic bus, and hopped on.