'Kia Ora' from New Zealand North Island - 22nd Nov

We were last in New Zealand in 2005 and it was the same then; Kiwis have a great pride in their country, towns and cities, native landscape, animals, rubgy team... everything, even their cricket team. They believe, and love to tell anyone who will listen, that their country is the best in the world and upon arrival it did not take long for us to remember that their argument has a lot of supporting evidence. They are very proud of their country and rightly so.

This pride leads towns, no matter how small, to have museums, star attractions, claims to fame or at the very least novelty name signs. This pride has even permeated into the psyche of people who have emigrated out here from places like UK or Switzerland (half of the north of England appears to have moved to NZ), all of which, despite still having their native ascents and not being able to pronounce half of the places on the map, show great affection for New Zealand.

After landing a couple of hours late we picked up the hire car and made our way straight through Auckland and up Highway One towards the Bay of Islands. Despite the slight jet lag we decided to push on get to our destination as soon as possible.

After leaving Auckland we quickly drove into jaw dropping landscapes and fine weather... supporting proof of what a great place NZ is. We carried on up Highway One for another couple of hours before deciding it was time for a comfort break and maybe the first of many 'flat white' coffees.

It is not a trick of the camera, the 'Flat White'
was alot bigger than Emma's latte!

We pulled into the small town of Kawakawa, which still had a rail line running through the centre of the high street (a sign of a prosperous past when up until the 1960s passenger trains would regularly stop here). This however was not the star attraction of this town... no the star attraction of this town was the Public Conveniences.

The ceramic columns and complex use of colourful broken tiles make these toilets stand out and set them apart from your average public toilets. It is safe to say they also stick out like a sore thumb compared to the rather 'normal' surroundings of the rest of the high street. They were created by Austrian, Friedrich Hundertwasser, who had made the town his home from 1975 as well as the base for his painting, architecture, ecologist and philosophical creative output.... I am not sure to what degree these skills influenced his design of the toilet block.

This was a good reminder of the type of gimmicks, and I use this term in a nice way, that all towns in NZ try and display.... indeed a lot of towns would give anything to have something as substantial as a Novelty Public Convenience. Some have to make do with claims to fame such as the Sheep Sheering Capital of NZ, owning the best small museum in the north island, owning the best small museum in the south island, having the biggest gum-boot (read: wellington) in the world on display on the main road into the town etc.

Some towns even make do with being a 'top 5' town i.e. owning a top 5 small museum, or owning the second largest fibreglass avocado statue in the Southern hemisphere.

After drinking my body-weight in coffee and spending a penny we moved on.

We arrived in the Bay of Islands and checked into our motel on the outskirts of Paihia (it turns out the motel was run by two scousers... one from Birkenhead). We proceeded to sort out some washing to do and book ourselves on a dolphin seeing trip for the next day.

Mid-afternoon we visited the site where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. The treaty is widely acknowledged as the founding document of modern New Zealand, defining the rights of the Maori and settlers. Despite paying NZ$25 pp (£12.50), the facts about the aim of the treaty as well as the misunderstandings between the Maori and settlers on what was agreed was not made at all clear. We came away feeling a little disappointed and £25 worse off.



The flag pole marks the spot of the signing of the treaty.



The Maori Meeting House in Waitangi Treaty Grounds 

As our motel room had a kitchenette we went to the supermarket and bought some lamb chops and vegetables. It was nice to taste some home cooked food.

As well as it having a kitchen, we had picked this motel because of the views and they did not disappoint even at night.

The travelling finally caught up with us and we were asleep by 9.30pm.