Day 24 - Bay of Islands NZ

Weather
Sunny, in the low 70s

Map

What we did
We had to tender to shore as this location is quite small. We did the included excursion which was a bus tour. This included three stops; zsto see some famous bathrooms, the Old Stone House and Rainbow falls. While the excursion was pleasant, not a lot of time was allotted to do more than take a few pictures. The bathrooms were created in 1999 by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Our next stop allowed us to visit Kerikeri where we saw the oldest stone house in New Zealand as well as a famous war canoe (Waka). Our last stop which was very brief was where we saw the Rainbow waterfall. While it was beautiful, we only had time to get to the first observation area which although showed us the waterfall, we would have needed more time to go to the next observation area to see the actual rainbows.

After the included tour we still had plenty of time, so we took a shuttle into town (about 1 KM) and had lunch on the water at Charlotte's Kitchen . The food was good and we were able to try some local beer and wine. After a little shopping, we leisurely strolled back to the ship. It was a beautiful day and this was a pleasant introduction to New Zealand.

Cultural Highlights
The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 less than a kilometer from where the tender ship's pier. This treaty laid the foundation of the relationship between the New Zealand Crown and the (indigenous) Maori people.