Bay of Islands (Waitangi), New Zealand

Bay of Islands New Zealand is a tendering port. Our excursion for today is to visit the Glowworm caves. We met in the Star Theater at 7:45 AM and were quickly called to make our way to the tender platform to board our tender. The tender ride is about 20 minutes. We then boarded a bus for a drive through the countryside to the Glowworm cave. Neither one of us has seen glowworms before. We entered a limestone cave that had numerous stalactites and stalagmites. Our guide explained how glowworms make filaments and use the lights on their tales to attract insects. Once the insect encounters the filaments, the glowworm retracts the filament and eats the insect .

Next we drove to a town called Kawakawa which is "famous" for its public restroom made from recycled materials. The windows are constructed from bottles. Since we didn't find public restrooms to be very exciting or culturally enriching, we walked the town which consisted of mostly restaurants before heading back to the bus. We were the first ones back to the bus. I guess others found the restrooms significantly more interesting than we did.

We met Dale in the town of Paihia and hopped on a ferry over to the town of Russell. Russell is an idyllic seaside village. We found a cafe and had fabulous fish and chips. The fish was John Dory. We also couldn't pass up the opportunity to have some nachos.

Dale and Bob found a bench in the shade. They sat and listened the waves gently lapping at the shore while watching families play in the water.

Meanwhile, I walked through the quaint town for about 20 minutes before meeting back up with Dale and Bob.

Russell was a stone's throw from our ship but we had to catch the ferry from Russell to Paihia, then a shuttle from Paihia to the tender dock and then catch a tender back to the ship. The three of us managed to make it back to the ship about a hour before time to be back on the ship.

We had dinner on the Aquavit Terrace. It was really warm. Jenni joined us and told us all about her excursion rowing a waka canoe.Read more