Day 7: Bay of Islands & Dolphins!

The team taking the Kiwi Experience bus to Paihia, then a boat around the Bay of Islands

Distance: Bus, 227km, Boat, 60km?

Total Distance so far: 1268km

Today we began bright and early at 6am for a 7am bus. Well, I did. The teenagers mostly stumbled out into their equivalent of midnight. 

We drove north, stopping off at a waterfall, before moving on to Paihia (beautiful place in Maori), a small town next to Waitangi, where the treaty that birthed New Zealand was signed, giving the Maori protection from both the French and the most ruthless land traders, in exchange for which they became part of the British Empire (mildly ruthless land traders)

Paihia sits amongst the Bay of Islands, an archipelago of numerous islands on NZ's east coast of the long stretch of land coming off its north west coast. The islands are surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.

Thus afternoon's activity was Dolphins! 

The trip I went with was set up for allowing swimming in the ocean with wild dolphins. However they, and companies like them, have 2 problems. It's an Ocean and the dolphins are Wild. Neither are required to play ball. Today we did find some dolphins, so I do have footage of them playing amongst the waves. They were amongst rougher waves though, such that we weren't allowed off to swim. :(

We then went on to try find more dolphins, as wee several other boats amongst the islands.cwe therefore got a trip through the archipelago, including a stop off at the cafe on the largest island.

In this island work continues to remove all the invasive predators, allowing bird numbers to increase. It seems to be working as the air was filled with the sounds of birdsong.

We returned to the hostel afterwards. Tonight there is a barbecue here, which will save on cooking!

Tomorrow we're going up to NZ's most northerly point, the Cape, to see where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean.