Oop north...

I hadn't been much further north than Auckland since I arrived here. That is until this weekend. Jo's birthday present to me was a weekend away to Paihia in the Bay of Islands which is a few hours drive north of Auckland. Interestingly enough this is where NZ's first game of cricket was held (thank you Wikipedia).

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and after checking in to the imaginatively named Hotel Paihia we headed just up the road to Waitangi where a very important Treaty was signed in 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is effectively the document on which modern day New Zealand was founded. The British chucked a few guns and blankets the way of the Maoris in exchange for the land. Or something dastardly like that anyway.

For the centenary celebrations a replica waka taua (war canoe) was built using traditional methods...

80 paddlers brought it to shore containing as many Maori warriors with scary war faces like this...

This is all that remains of the tree from which the canoe was fashioned...

One of the first Maori chiefs to sign the Treaty was Hone Heke. He was a bit of a monkey though and protested against the British by chopping down the flagstaff in the grounds on four occasions. The cheeky rascal. It's metal now though...

Chop that down with your little flint tomahawk.

After our cultural afternoon we went out for some food and a few drinks in town. There isn't a great deal there except a few backpackers which were too far to walk in the rain. We went to seemingly the only bar in the centre showing the All Blacks test against Australia. After a solid first half the ABs did bugger all in the second and lost to two late scores. Maybe the world cup won't be the walkover a lot of people expect.

Sunday was a day to get up early and head even further north for the surprise activity organised by Jo. We're in NZ so it had to be something adrenelin fuelled and it was...QUAD BIKING!!!

The weather was awful for the whole drive up to Ahipara which is just outside Kaitaia and the southernmost point of 90 mile beach (which is actually only 55 miles long... Global warming no doubt). But the rain stopped just as we got to the offices of Tua Tua Tours. Only Jo and I were booked on a tour so we had the guide to ourselves. We spent 2 hours hooning over flat sand beaches (reaching speeds of 75 km/hr), teetering over coastal rocks, skiding up sand dunes and sliding down the other side of them. Utterly fantastic couple of hours. I have some good video footage which I'll release soon. Here are a few pics...

Our guide Greg, followed by Jo

Taking a breather

In the background are the shacks of the many local seaweed scroungers. They extract the agar which they sell at market. They could do with buying themselves some dulux. Although seeing as they have no power or running water they probably have other things to worry about.

We make quad biking look cool

From the windy coastline to desert like conditions

This was steeper than it looks...lots of fun

Hands down the best thing I've done in New Zealand and if anyone fancies coming over here to visit we'll gladly join you on a quad bike tour.

With smiles embedded on our chops we headed back to the hotel stopping off at New Zealand's oldest building (1819 - snigger, my parents house is older than that)

And Haruru Falls...

The heavy rainful making the normally clear water a lighter shade of brown.

On Monday we caught the ferry over to Russell, the first major port of New Zealand. It's early population of ex-convicts and drunken sailors earned it the title "Hell Hole of the Pacific". Sadly Auckland took over as the main port and the country's capital and Russell became the quaint fishing village it is today...

On our way back home we stopped off at Kawakawa, a tiny little town with nothing to write home about except some unique public conveniences...

They are apparently "world famous" - here is why

Our final stop was the Kauri museum. I found this really interesting, with lots of interactive displays which kept my short attention span entertained. Here I am sat inside what looked like a portaloo, carved from a Kauri swamp log which was buried underwater for over 3000 years...

I look very pleased with myself. Although staff would probably rather I'd buried my own swamp log back in Kawakawa.