Mid semester Break Part 1 (Bay of Islands)

Ok I have been absent from here for a really long time but its because mom, dad, and I left on our awesome 2 week adventure to the north part of New Zealand and then over to Australia.

The first day we had a really long drive up to the Bay of Islands. It is normally a really long drive anyway but it was even longer because it was Easter weekend and there was lots of traffic. We eventually made it and ended up staying in a nice little beach town called Paihia and we were only a short walk to the water. The next day we got up bright and early and took a cruise tour around the Bay of Islands. We were lucky enough to see dolphins swimming alongside the boat. We sailed to a few islands where we could walk around before heading out to the "Hole in the Rock" which has been formed by the water blasting through the rock formations. The sea was really rough out there and we were rocking back and forth so much they wouldn't let people onto the observation deck.

After that we stopped off at Russell, a town that used to be known as "The Hellhole of New Zealand" because of all the shady activity of the sailors back in the day, but it is nice now. We walked around a bit before taking the ferry back. We went up to Waitangi which is where the English and Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. It is the most important document in New Zealand history and it is still be discussed and debated today. Their rights were unjustly taken from them and the power controlled by the invading Europeans, similar to the Native Americans but I don't think to quite the same extent.

Finally, we drove down to a town called Whangarei (Pronounced kind of like Fung-er-ay) which is a little closer to Auckland. We stopped at the waterfall there before heading back to Auckland and flying over to Sydney.