Paihia

Jun 6
8 min read

May 28 - 31, 2026 - Paihia. Paihia is a town in the Bay of Islands with a population of 1623 (as of 2023). It is close to Russell (see below) and the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The Bay of Islands is an "enclave" with more than 140 subtropical islands next to the North Island.

May 28, 2026- The drive from Hamilton to Paihia was about 5 hours. There weren't any road closures and all the road was paved, so we didn't really have any issues. We made several stops along the way to avoid sleep driving.

Stop 1: Lost Boys Cafe. Our first stop was barely out of townd at a place called Lost Boys Cafe. I had a pie because I haven't gained enough weight. Chris had a coffee. The pie was about 6/10.

It was quite foggy this morning, so not much to see along the way.

Stop 2: Puhoi: Puhoi Pub, general store. Yet another social media recommendation. I shall stop getting my recommendations from social media as I am continually disappointed. Since Chris didn't have anything at Lost Boys, he had an English Breakfast at the Puhoi Pub which was awful. Perhaps he ordered the wrong thing as it's known for it's Kiwi pub food, like fish and chips.

The town of Puhoi and its Pub have some history.

The area was settled by Bohemians and the Pub was originally "The German Hotel" in 1879. It was renamed the Pūhoi Hotel during World War I when anti-German sentiment was running high. Before the current building was erected, there was an older, smaller building on the site referred to as the "Baby Saloon."

The interior o the pub is floor to ceiling eccentric memorabilia,

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/720c8b_55a5a59c0e664dad8cd54dfacb0aef2e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Bizarrely, across the street was a shop selling authentic American Indian items. Not sure of the draw in NZ, but maybe purchasing this sort of thing is interesting for people from Australia/NZ.

The general store was established at about the same time by the Bohemians and is the recommended place to buy provisions if you are staying in the area (which we weren't).

Stop 2: Warkworth Parry Kauri Park and kauri trees. Some background information is needed so you can appreciate what this is all about. What are kauri trees? A kauri tree is a native New Zealand conifer. It is one of the world's longest-living and most massive tree species, surviving for over 2,000 years, growing up to 50 meters tall, and boasting trunk girths of up to 16 meters. They were cut down by early settlers (and to a lesser extent the Mauri) almost to extinction so that now they are protected except in certain circumstances (see below). It grows very slowly, so there are very few old growth trees left.

The Parry Park we visited contains two of the largest kauri in the North Island. The McKinney Kauri is estimated to be 800–900 years old, towering over 38 meters tall with a trunk girth of more than 10 meters. There are whole ecosystems on their trunks and branches.

The Simpson Kauri is around 500 years old, 37 meters tall, and has a 7.75-meter girth.

Oddly, they reminded me a bit of baobob trees as the trunks looked a bit out of proportion (wide) to their branches. (this doesn't show in the photos here.

This park was also a lovely place to hear birdsong while walking along the elevated wooden walkway through the grove of kauri, and other, trees. This is a close up of a kauri tree trunk.

Drive by: The boot fence. In New Zealand, "boot fences" are part of a quirky Kiwi tradition where rural wire fences are decorated with everyday items like boots, gumboots, and even bras. Rather than marking territory or symbolizing ranch life like in North America, these installations act as a sort of grassroot community art gallery and/or roadside tribute.

Stop 3: Whangarei Falls. A short stop to break up the trip. These waterfalls are about 26 meters high (multiply by 3) and are very easy to get to.

Finally we arrived at Paihai and checked into the Al Moana Hotel. To be honest, this was a bit of a disappointment. It was a small room, the WIFI didn't work and it was right on the main drag, so it was noisy. We did manage to move to a larger room, which still had bad wifi, but at least we weren't tripping over each other.

To make matters worst, Chris fell walking up a ramp and watched his computer bounce on the pavement. Thankfully, neither Chris, nor the computer, were seriously harmed.

We were both in need of a drink and went to the local Mexican for dinner. This was also underwhelming, but after the margarita, I didn't care as much.

May 29- Today we took the ferry over to Russell. Russell is a beautiful town that has an amazing history and boasts a number of firsts:

New Zealand's First Capital: The original capital was technically at Okiato, just south of modern-day Russell, before the title moved to Auckland.
A Notorious Reputation: In the 1830s, it was a lawless frontier town filled with whalers, escaped convicts, and grog sellers, earning it the nickname "Hellhole of the Pacific".
Historic "Firsts": The local establishment, The Duke of Marlborough, was granted New Zealand's first-ever liquor license in the 1840s and still operates today. According to the sign, it's been refreshing rascals and reprobates since 1827.

National Conflict: Towering over the town is Flagstaff Hill (Te Maiki). In 1844 and 1845, the Māori chief Hōne Heke famously cut down the British flagstaff here four times in protest of the colonial government, sparking the Northern War. (Flagstaff unfortunately not visible on the left side of this photo....)

Oldest Church: Christ Church is the oldest existing church in the country (dating back to 1836) and still bears musket ball holes in its weatherboards from the 1845 Battle of Kororāreka.

French Heritage: The town is home to the Pompallier Mission, Australasia’s only surviving French Catholic mission building, originally used as a printery and tannery in the 1840s. This is also where the country's first printing press was located.

The Gables Restaurant is not listed above, but is also interesting because they used whalebone for the foundation piles. The current Italian owner mounted one of them on the wall.

The typical way of getting to Russell is via ferry. We chose the passenger ferry; although, there is a car ferry available. You can drive there, but it's a long way around.

The ferry terminal was small with some nice statues. Fishing is a popular sport in the area.

It's a 10 minute ferry ride and the view was nice.

Russell is quite charming and would have been a nice place to stay - maybe next time. The dock is protected by several totems.

The fig tree between the police chief's house and the Duke of Marlborough Pub was amazing. It also had a huge elk horn fern on its trunk.

We had lunch at the Duke of Marlborough Pub. We chose well and shared 1 meal of fish and chips.

A note about the fried bread (lower left). We ordered this because we wanted to take the butter back to the hotel. We had some lovely sourdough bread we wanted to finish before returning, but no butter. It didn't make sense to buy butter for 2 days. We ended up splitting one of the fried bread to act as a "holder" and putting the butter in the middle. I thought I took a photo of it, but now I can't find it. We "replenished" it a few days later by purchasing a scone and asking for extra butter. The black napkin was our butter carrier that day.

The Pub has an interesting bar which is where the above liquor license is framed. There were some other fun things on the wall, including the below.

After lunch we walked up to Flagstaff Hill for the view. Starting up there was a Maori burial area.

and an intreguing house along the way.

The top had a lovely view.

Walking around town we saw some interesting plants and

walked to see the Museum gardens. We were pretty much "museum fatigued" by then, so didn't go into the museum.

It seems outrigger canoeing is also popular, as we saw about 10 on the beach as we were walking around.

When we went into the Gables to see the whalebone, the Italian supplier told us about a fantastic pizza place almost next door. You guessed it, we had an early dinner there and split a wonderful pizza.

According to Chris, he arranged a champagne sunset cruise for us. When we walked by a liquor store earlier I turned down the offer of champagne. The "sunset cruise" turned out to be the regular return ferry which we took at about sunset and there was no champagne as, not knowing what he had in mind, I turned down the earlier offer:)

May 30- Cape Reinga and the northern most lighthouse. Cape Reinga is the northwestern-most tip of New Zealand's Aupōuri Peninsula. Famous for its iconic lighthouse and the spectacular collision of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean, it is a profoundly sacred site in Māori mythology where spirits begin their journey to the afterlife.

Cape Reinga was a 6 hour round trip drive to the "Top of NZ", but well worth it.

We noticed a change in the farming techniques. Whereas in the South Island the hedges were made of thick hedges, in this area of the North Island they used bamboo hedges.

and poinsettia trees were plentiful and in bloom - unfortunately, I don't have any photos of these.

We broke up the long trip North by stopping at Te Tapuwae for a coffee. This turned out to be a wonderful stop. Even with "museum fatigue" we found this place fascinating and with good food and good coffee. It is a workshop focusing on perpetuating ancient wood carving skills. The wood they use is kauri wood. I mentioned earlier that kauri is protected in all cases EXCEPT if it's been found as fallen dead in a swamp. I guess there's quite a bit of dead swamp kauri around because

1) Chris has a 25 year old table at home that is kauri.

2) We also visited another kauri workshop in Whangarei (that I forgot to blog about yesterday) and bought a mirror and a wooden key holder (no photos, you'll have to visit me in Florida to see what we bought).

3) There is a lot of kauri at this stop too. ANYWAY....

We didn't know what this place was when we stopped for coffee. Besides the butter (see above), I had a scone (on the left) and Chris had one of the most enormous sausage rolls I've ever seen. A word about NZ scones. They are actually a biscuit....

After our snack we walked over to see the kauri exhibit. Amongst other things, there was an enormous staircase carved from 1 kauri. Buni is there to give scale.

and a lovely canoe.

Finally we got to the Cape and walked down to the lighthouse.

We saw the spectacular clash of the Tasman and Pacific

The dunes

and the lighthouse

It was interesting to see how far we were from the S. Pole here vs. how far we were when we were in Bluff. 6211 KM at the Cape vs. 4803 KM from Slope Point (Invercargill post).