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Russell & the Bay of Islands
We pootle up north, having asked Ken to take us to a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite about three hours' up from Auckland. It's a pleasant drive, initially on the State Highway and then into rolling, lush green hills and wiggly roads (and past the impeccably named Hodgson Road), as we approach Otamure Bay for our first stop. The scenery is beautiful, but it hasn't blown us away yet... I suspect that we are becoming a little hard to please!
We pull into the DOC site, and, sheltering from the rain in our tiny van, hunker down for the night. We're quite warm and comfortable, although it's a little cramped when we are trying to manoeuvre around each other to get dressed or find things, having not yet got used to 'van yoga' or the storage system.
However, all is well and we're quite cheerful - even though the campsite facilities are very basic (long drop toilets and a cold shower outside standing on a pallet anyone?), we brave them and get back on the road the following morning... it feels like a long time since we were on the road, and it's great.
We spend the rest of the day winding around hills, valleys, and pretty bits of coastline. It's very cloudy and rains on and off, which reduces our view a bit and dims the otherwise bright blue of the sea, but it's still very attractive. We stop for a coffee at a little art gallery with two huge black dogs, and end up changing our take out order at the last minute when we see the wonderful view that the dining area has - straight out to sea via some steep hills and thick vegetation... it inspires us to share a chocolate brownie too.
Reaching Russell later in the day, we park up and walk around the town. It's busy with packs of cruise ship wombles, mostly German and heavily laden with cameras and camcorders, although the beauty of them travelling in packs is that they are easy to spot and therefore avoid. There are lots of dinky clapperboard buildings here, and it was New Zealand (or Aotearoa's) first European settlement, back in the 19th Century. However, it's first few decades were filled with drunkenness and debauchery as it became a home for sailors, whalers and escaping convicts - Charles Darwin described it in 1835 as being full of the 'refuse of society'. Luckily, the country's capital was relocated to Auckland in 1841 and Russell was abandoned, giving it 150 years or so to percolate into a good-looking and very civilised town full of gift shops and cafes instead.
Some of the country's oldest buildings are here, and we visit the church (Christ Church, built 1836), whose build was contributed to by Charles Darwin. It has a few dents in the walls from old cannonballs and musket fire, but is in otherwise perfect condition, with a full complement of tapestried pew cushions filling each row of seats.
We also visit Maiki on Flagstaff Hill. This is home to a flagpole that was chopped down four times in succession by Hone Heke, a Maori warrior from the area, in objection to the British turning up and attempting to run the joint, as we've seen that we often tend to do.
Having dipped our toes into a bit of cultural learning, we decide not to take a cruise out onto the Bay of Islands - much as it would probably be lovely anyway, the weather is still pretty cloudy and threatening rain, and we decide to save our money for another day.
We jump back into Flap and motor back down the winding roads that brought us here, heading down towards Auckland, and deciding to give the Coromandel Peninsula a try next. One thing we do notice (apart from that there appear to be more cows than sheep at the moment), is that most of the green hills have evenly spaced horizontal scarring across them. We're not sure whether this is caused by man or glacier, but it's our first mystery, and gives us a taste of some of the more unusual scenery to come.
We've had a good introduction to the roads, scenery, people and history of the country, but feel itchy to get into deep, dark Aotearoa - and we're pretty sure that we ain't seen nothing yet.
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