So it's Labour weekend in NZ and that's the weekend we choose to go to Paihia, up in the Bay of Islands, along with it seems everyone else in NZ. So finding accommodation last minute is a bit of a nightmare, we are greeted with the words no vacancy, no availability every place we try online. Eventually we manage to book a nights stay at the Twin Pines tourist park, phew! Images of sleeping on the beach are averted.

Our lovely Naked Bus driver Trent kindly drops us off right outside the Twin Pines tourist park as we arrive pretty late into the night and the cabins are a little way out of town. In the morning we go exploring and discover the Haruru Falls just next to the grounds and a walk that leads to Waitangi where, at the Treaty House, Maori and Europeans joined in signing the historic Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

Paihia, itself is a small seaside town but not nearly as busy as we'd expected for a labour weekend. So when at the seaside you do seaside related things like eating good ice cream, and fish and chips. We did just that at a place called 'Shippy', a 19th century boat, mored in the bay where they serve fish & chips on board.

A move back to hostels and we're back at the familiar YHA but in separate rooms for the night, K with three American girls and S with three German boys... She drew the short straw.

We took the ferry over to Russell which was the first capitol of NZ and is a lovely old seafront town. We did the walk up to Flagstaff Hill to see where the flagstaff was cut down four times by a Maori chief in protest of the signing of the treaty.
We also sampled the hot chocolate and cheese toastie at Aunt Sally's as recommended by Alex & Sarah aka 'The Pansies'... well it'd be rude not to.