Bay of Islands, New Zealand
Part 2 of the New Zealand adventures. We left Auckland on the 7th of January for the Bay of Islands.
Bay of Islands
Being on holidays, we could not resist the pancakes in the hotel for breakfast, so we had breakfast and lunch the same time (had some portions of pancake in the States before, but this was unseen…).
Our first stop was at the Whangarei waterfalls:
Just before we arrived at Russel, we took a small detour to see the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. This is the location where in 1840, a treaty was signed between the Maori and the British on how they could live together on this nice island. It worked for about 4 years, when some skirmish broke out over the interpretation of the agreement on how to obtain land by the British:
Great fun: between Waitangi and Russel (our final destination), transport goes by ferry.The small boat can keep just over 10 cars.
Later than expected, we arrived in the lovely B&B where we will stay a couple of nights to discover this part of the Bay of Islands. The Flagstaff Lodge, called after a famous flagpole near the hotel. The pole, being a symbol of British presence and ruling, was cut down several times by the Maori.
Ruth and Jessie, who run the lodge, made us feel at home right away. Us arriving just in time for the daily cocktail and hors d’oeuvres helped a lot of course to get to know the and the other guests. We met some great people, with great stories, from Canada, Australia and Norway. Our hosts did all they could during our stay to make life as comfortable as possible. When looking for a place to stay on the Bay of Islands, you should look no further! The massage in their spa made it all complete :-) We will miss the cooked breakfasts of Ruth…
Two great places to dine in Russel are The Gables and the Kamakura. Both are located at the beach of Russel and have beside the great view over the sea a great choice of (sea-)food. The oysters grow in Russel, so they are fresher than fresh here…
After a great walk to the flagstaff and visiting town, we considered it time to pay a visit to the local beach. We enjoyed it so much that I went back disguised as lobster.(memo to self: put sunblock on more often).
And, after our stay in Russel, we were all ready to go south and have some more adventures – for the next posts on the blog!
Koen Blanquart is a strategy consultant, journalist, and author.
Wanderlust is one of his driving factors, and he shares his travels here on Boarding Today. Koen is also the skipper of SV Bagabonda, a sailing vessel making a slow circumvention of the globe..
Koen recently published a book on how to manage a remote team: The Suitcase Office.
