After a 4 hour drive from Auckland through beautiful NZ countryside, we arrived at Paihia in the Bay Islands. This was a pretty seaside town and was a good base for our cruise around the Bay islands. It was all very scenic, it seemed like most of the islands were surrounded by clear blue waters. We also got to see the famous hole in the rock just off Cape Brett, which had been etched by wind and wave creating the hole which allows boats to skillfully navigate their way through the hole and into Grand Cathedral Cave. We were also lucky to see a large pod of bottle-nosed dolphins swimming alongside the boat for quite sometime. On our way back to Paihia we stopped off at Russell.

After the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, the British established Russell (then known as Kororareka) as the nation's capital, which later moved south to Auckland, then farther south to Wellington. This was the first capital of New Zealand and one of the first European settlements. The town seeemed to have old charm and we climbed upMaiki (Flagstaff Hill). This is said to be the spot where Maori chieftain Hone Heke threatened to chop down the Pakeha flagstaff several times in the 1840s, apparently it is believed he managed to do this half a dozen times. This was a good vantage point we were able to look out across the bay.

Whilst in the Bay Islands we visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.It was here on February 6th, 1840, that the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between Maori and the British Crown.The Treaty Grounds are part of the 506 hectare (1000 acre) Waitangi National Trust estate, which was gifted to NZ by Lord and Lady Bledisloe in 1932. The Treaty Grounds include,The Treaty House - built for the first British Resident, James Busby and his family which is one of New Zealand's oldest and most visited historic homes. As well as this there is also Te Whare Runanga - fully carved Maori Meeting House, which is representative of all Iwi (regional tribes) in New Zealand.We also saw one of the world's largest Maori ceremonial war canoes (Ngatokimatawhaorua), this was magnificent. Finally there was an imposing Naval flagstaff, which marked the place where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed. The whole site was really interesting, it seems like there is some controversy surrounding the Treaty as people say that due to differences in translation from English to Maori, the Maori's didn't actually know what they were signing. They didn't actually realise signing the document would give Britain full sovereignty, they believed the document would only give the British power over the British that resided there. However there doesn't seem to be any malice towards the British, which makes a nice change!

Next we travel to the most northerly point in New Zealand, Cape Reigna