Day 11b-Bay of Islands

I was up early this morning, a walk around the walking track while taking photos of the islands as we were coming in to our bearth at Bay of Islands. We had to anchor off Waitangi and tender into the warf before they provided a shuttle bus service into Paihia.
Before heading into Paihia though, I had my shore tour, kayaking tour up the estuary to Haruru Falls. It was a great tour, though sharing a kayak with an American proved to be and interesting experience; everytime I would try to keep to the left of the estuary he would paddle us right. The falls were impressive. Paddling back down to our starting point was a lot easier than going upstream, as the tide was going out and we were paddling against it to make our way up the estuary. The whole way, the estuary is very shallow, but it used to be able to accomodate tall ships. Over time with erosion a lot of sand and silt has washed down to fill the estuary. Now it is so shallow we almost beached out kayak at one stage.
After kayaking, I made my way into Paihia, had a look at some markets, bought some fudge and had fresh fish and chips for lunch before making my way back to the ship about 14:00.
There was a bit of a wait to get on the tender, but once back I took it easy before we sent Millie to Nanny and Pa, and Lindz and I went for dinner for our anniversary, followed by the show by Dale Burridge, who seems almost a carbon copy of Anthony Warlow. It was an amazing show.Read more