Aroha Island

We had read that the best place to see a wild Kiwi (bird) was Aroha Island, up from the Bay of Islands, a private nature preserve with a campground. It's a small island you can walk around in 30 minutes, joined to the mainland by a causeway through some mangroves. We dutifully checked in, scouted the area, and prepared ourselves for the night vigil in the bush with our red cellophane-covered flashlights (kiwis are poor-sighted and can't see red at all; so the story goes). We went out after nightfall, after the winged birds had stopped singing, found a bench in the appointed area and waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour or so--it seemed much longer--we walked back to the campground defeated, but possibly wiser. As we learned, kiwis are extremely territorial. Aroha Island, maybe 10 acres at most, sports just a pair...a 44 year old female and a 22 year old male. We did the kiwi safari thing one more time the next week, during which I developed my fake kiwi conspiracy theory, to be stated in a later post. All the pix below are from my scouting of the island the afternoon of our arrival.

Kiwi zone...you see this and other such all over the Northland

Big beautiful trees on the island

Best, for me, were the botanical exhibits

Way more about Kauri in later posts

A baby Kauri

Helpful map

Birth of a silver fern frond

Alas, no kiwis

Stone Store, Kerikeri

The Methodist missionaries got to New Zealand almost before the whalers. Not far from Russell is Kerikeri and the Stone Store, part of an 1820s missionary complex, New Zealand's oldest stone structure and oldest store. I'm not sure it's been in continuous operation, but currently it's operated by DOC, with period-costumed salespersons and features old-timey merchandise. The hit for us, however, was New Zealand's oldest "exotic" tree, a pear tree, still going, planted in 1819.

Helpful model #37,684: the Kerikeri basin and its historic
buildings; thanks to a rain the night before, the model's basin
is actually flooded

Big old trees abound

As do historical exhibits

Epiphytes in a beautiful pohutukawa

The Stone Store

Assorted old-timey merchandise

 

"Fush and Chups"...don't ask me

Muy importante: mass production...

More history

Photo from Zane Grey's fishing camp not far
from Kerikeri; Zane Grey?!...baseball star,
dentist, writer, sportsman, Buckeye?! Indeed

The 199 year old pear tree

Indeed; still looking for the partridge

Rooby's Boat Ride

You can drive into Russell from the south, but to leave toward the north you have to take the ferry. Somehow even very short ferry rides are a big deal for me. This one could not have been half a kilometer, but it was still an adventure...especially in view of our SatNav's reaction...to be recounted in a later post.

Sister ferry

Tour bus

Cleared for landing...at Paihia

At the treaty grounds at Waitangi

Haruru Falls, ugliest in NZ

Russell, 2018

We visited Russell in 2008 and again in 2014. It is NZ's original European settlement and now perhaps its most genteel place. The original town is hardly more than a few streets, but those streets are all about 19th century and colonial times, from the 1820s, when Russell was mostly a whaling station and the "hell-hole of the Pacific." Nowadays, you can get a hamburger, with all the trimmings, at the Duke of Marlborough, for 25$NZ. We still love the place and spent two nights there, mostly administrative and enjoying the quiet and beautiful ambiance. Alas, I don't have many pix of Russell...this time mostly the flora, which is impressive enough. Search Russell in the keyword box and you'll come up with a bit more. Or google it for lots of pix. It's a visual and historical delight.

I have this thing about hibiscuses deriving from my mother, a
 bit of a gardener, and my south Florida upbringing

No mossy pohutukawas in south Florida

Out on the pier, an ad for cruising on the
R. Tucker Thompson; we did this in 2008, one
of our best NZ experiences, one of our best
retirement travel experiences, a day on the Bay
of Islands on a tall ship

"Refreshing rascals and reprobates since 1827"

The great Morton Bay fig street near the Duke of Marlborough

Wadded-up hibiscus