Russell

Day 158 – Paihia, New Zealand

Today was the day it was supposed to rain and be generally a gloomy day. As you can see on the picture above, that wasn’t exactly what happened.

As I was taking two tours through the same company (the hole in the rock and to Cap Reinga), company which runs a ferry from Paihia to Russell, the town on the other side of the bay, they gave me a free return ticket for the ferry.

So today was the perfect day to explore.

Russell is one of the first town in New Zealand, it was in particular a whaling town with a very bad reputation. Nowadays, it is still a small town, but with beautiful houses, manicured gardens, and nice walks in the surrounding hills.

Russell – View over the Bay of Islands

This is the same bay where I saw dolphins yesterday. These aquamarine waters and pure sky diverge quite a lot from the pictures I took yesterday!

I enjoyed a gentle (though at times steep) walk in the hills above the town, going through kiwi preservation area. (No dogs allowed.) Pictures in the gallery.

Back in Paihia, I decided to extend my stay in the hostel and begged to be allowed to change dorm to get a bottom bunk -the ladder to get on the top one is awkward. I was lucky to get one. (Now of course I got a different kind of bed with a low upper bunk, which means that I hit my head on it when I’m sitting, so between a half-sunburn and the repeated hits, my head hurts. But well.)

I talked quite a lot over the days with a woman from the UK who arrived at the hostel by the same bus I took. It was nice.

And I forgot to note that I have been travelling for 5 months now!