Around the coast to Whatuwhiwhi!

Dear all 

Today we did manage to drive further than the next town and slowly wound our way up the coast to the very cute town of Russell.

The Lonely Planet refers to it as peaceful and pretty and I can certain vouch for that. It has that stylish old colonial feel about it with smart freshly painted clapboard buildings on the waterfront lined with Pohutukawa trees and because most people travel over as a day trip from Pahia blissfully lacking too many cars. It was originally a fortified Maori settlement known as Kororareka (sweet penguin),but the europeans arrived and it soon decsended into a magnet for fleeing convicts, whalers, prostitutes and drunk sailors. Charles Darwin described it in 1835 as full of 'the refuse of society' and was also known as the 'hellhole of the pacific'. Today it more resembles the backdrop for a Martha Stewart show.

We then took the car ferry from Okiato Point, just South of Russell to Opua a ten minutes journey that was so slick and just $16 for everything. As we crossed we got a much better idea of the reasons why this is such a popular spot for tourists. The coastline which had been stunning for most of the journey now opened up into a huge bay with wonderful views of hundreds of coves and more than 150 small islands in the bay. The sea is so clear and shimmers in varying shades of turquoise to deep blue. The hub of this side of the bay is Pahia (not that impressed, but the beach was pretty!), but literally next door is the site of the first permanent English settlement and was where the Treaty of Waitangi was drawn up and first signed by 46 Maori chiefs in 1840. The land where the treay was signed was donated to the state and a reserve created to stop it being subsumed into the town. There is a very informative show and ouside there is the very well restored treaty house and the Whare runanga (meeting house), completed in 1940 to celebrate the centenary of the treaty. It is now the centre of all the celebrations on Waitangi day each Feb 6th.

Heaving ourselves out of the grounds we tripped our way around the coast to Whatuwhiwhi to possibly the most expensive campsite in the world, but certainly in NZ (that we have found!),there were loads of kids all over the site shouting and screaming but the sunset was stunning!

Yawn.............Nite all

Hugs

 

Sara