Northland

We did one last trip up to the northern part of New Zealand for 5 days. It was relaxing and enjoyable. A true vacation. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in Paihia that treated us so well and we weren't too far from the wharf.
A few hours after we got in we went on a jetboat ride to "Hole in the Rock." It was so much fun - I loved getting some air when we hit the big waves.

The next day we went to Cape Reinga - the very northern tip part of NZ, where you can see the Pacific Ocean meeting the Tasman Sea. It was gorgeous! We spent a few hours there, walking around and enjoying the view.

We also went to the sand dunes and boogie-boarded down them....it was an exhausting hike to the top of them so I only attempted it about 3 times. The ultimate goal was to skid across the muddy water at the bottom of the hill.....but I never quite made it.



After the sand dunes, we drove along 90-mile beach. We had tried to go earlier that morning but the tide was too high. It was fun to just cruise along on the sand.

A few of us girls went parasailing and dolphin watching. Parasailing was wonderful, and we got a great view of the Bay of Islands at 1200 feet in the air. Our main intention in going dolphin watching was to be able to swim with them. Due to NZ rules and regulations, we are not allowed to swim with a pod of dolphins if there are babies or juveniles present. The first pod we came upon was huge in number but there were a handful of baby dolphins. So, we just enjoyed the sight of all of them swimming around the boat. We drove around the water for another couple of hours before finding another pod of only adult dolphins, but the swells in the water were too big so they wouldn't let us in for safety reasons. Kind of a bummer, but still a cool experience.

Sunday was Easter. We attended the local tiny branch and everyone was so friendly. We tripled their population. After church we all drove up to an area that overlooked the Bay of Islands and had a nice picnic lunch and then went to the place where the Waitangi Treaty took place, which is New Zealand's founding document. It was an agreement made between the Maori and the British Crown in 1840. We toured the site and learned some more interesting facts about NZ's history and Maori culture.

This is a traditional Maori marae, a respectful gathering place where guests are specially welcomed. There is a lot of symbolism with them as well.

This is a traditional war canoe - the largest one in the world. It took 4 years to complete and has a lot of detailed carvings on it representing the major Maori tribes. These things are so massive, this picture doesn't even capture it. There are a lot of interesting facts about these "wakas" as well which I will share with you more some other day.

The last day there a few of us left early in the morning with James to drive to Kerikeri, a town nearby, but the Easter holiday includes Friday, Saturday, and Monday here so most of the shops were still closed. James' wife's cousin is a retired All Blacks rugby player. We stopped by his house and met him and talked with him a bit. Afterwards, we just packed up and checked out of our hotel then browsed through the souvenir shops along the harbor. The guy at the front desk had been so sweet and helpful to us and so I gave him some Reeses PB Cups that I had left over - I told him it was "the best American candy out there." I've never seen anybody's eyes go bigger, haha he was so excited. It was great. :)