The Bay of Islands

Van life has officially begun! We picked our home for the next 30 days and headed north out of Auckland for our first stop at Paihia, the gateway to the Bay of Islands.

The area is quite historic as the first treaty, the Waitangi Treaty, which essentially created the country, was signed here. The countries first official capital, Russell, is also in the Bay. However, most visitors come to see the turquoise waters and explore the hundreds of little islands that give this area its name rather than for the history.

It was just a 4 hour drive north of Auckland, it can get quite busy on the weekends, and after we had done our grocery shopping and spent some time organising ourselves in the van we didn't have much time to do much other than cook ourselves dinner and enjoy the views on the lake from our campsite, its a hard life.

Next day we got on board a boat to take a tour of the bay and islands. There is a large pod of Bottlenose Dolphins that live in the bay and luckily for us they were in a very playful mood, they came right up to the boat to say hello as we were enroute to our first stop. Unlucky for you, Armelle didn't press the record button so you will have to imagine it 😆. The waters are rich with life and these dolphins are very well feed, believed to be the largest Bottlenoses to be found. Once the Dolphins got bored and went back to hunting we headed out to the Cape Brett Lighthouse and Piercy Island, home to the famous Hole in the Rock. A geological wonder that has been carved over millions of years, it is big enough to sail through, if the conditions are right and the captain is just a little crazy. The conditions were goos so we went through! It was impressive how a 3 stories boat like ours went through!
After all this excitement the boat dropped us on Urupukapuka island, for about an hour, just enough time to walk uo the highest hill to the get a good view and have a nice swim.

Very enjoyable day in the bay of Islands and a good start of our van adventure!Read more