New Country, New Zealand

2/7/20252 min read

Arriving in Bay of Islands

We arrived at Bay of Islands the day after Waitangi Day, which celebrates the birth of the New Zealand nation. But as it's the day when the Moari ceded New Zealand to England seems to be some thoughts it shouldn't be celebrated quite so much.

We were delayed leaving the ship today, this is our first port where we didn’t dock but instead we anchored in the harbour and tenders then take us on shore. However there was a problem with the tenders meaning everyone was delayed getting ashore. It was all a bit chaotic and lot of unhappy people.

Born to be wild!

Luckily, we had gotten up early and had a ticket for the 3rd tender but we managed to sneak onto the second. This is all after the Princess excursions and elite cruises had gotten off with their priority passes. We know some people had tickets for the late 20s but haven't heard what time they got ashore. The journey to shore was very bumpy, I guess getting used to a small boat after the big ship!

We had booked a tour on a trike. This was a big roadhog type of motor bike with 3 wheels and 2 seats at the back. It was great fun, a good way to tour the coast, although a bit nerve-wracking when I noticed the speed was 98kph! Also amusing that the driver forgot my name, he said something to a Jeffrey and I ignored him amusing he was talking to himself or his bike, but then he asked Karen what my name was as I didn't answer him when he said Jeffrey!

Craft Beer Time

After we recovered from that Karen did some shopping and sea level sightseeing when I walked up to a lookout spot. This was a 30 minute walk up through a really noisy forest with insects and birds to a disappointingly small lookout! I did have a good view of our ship and although busy at the top going up and down I was pretty much on my own with the forest sounds.

We found a craft beer pub and was nice to have beer other than Lagunitas although this having to pay for it malarkey was annoying.

Back on Board

After that we walked back to the tender point to get back to the boat stopping on the way to seem some young/brave locals ignoring the signs and jumping from a bridge into the sea.

Our first impressions of New Zealand are brilliant and looking forward to seeing more over the next few days. Not sure if we can count a tender as a new form of transport but we have added the trike to our list.