Day 1 - Arrival in Auckland, travel to The Bay of Islands

We arrived at Auckland International Airport at 5:30am (local time) after a 12 hour flight from Los Angeles, CA. Be aware that you 'lose' a day by crossing the International Dateline. We left on Sunday night and arrived Tuesday morning! We performed all the necessaries without event - Immigration, money exchange, rental car pick up and negotiating the roads out of Auckland north towards the Bay of Islands. 

A word of caution to you Americans - New Zealanders (Kiwis) drive on the LEFT-HAND side of the road. This took some getting used to, but my wife was very good about reminding me to, "Stay left!" Usually, in a slightly panicked voice as I attempted to steer the vehicle into the proper lane. Once you get the hang of it, driving in New Zealand is a pleasure. The roads are generally in good condition, the traffic is sparse outside of the cities, and Kiwis are amazingly tolerant of, and patient with, gawking tourists. Fuel is easily found and station proprietors are friendly.

We made our way through the modern city of Auckland before rush hour traffic and north on SH1 towards the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. A short way down the peninsula we stopped for a coffee and a small bite to eat. Then we continued down the peninsula to Shakespear Regional Park for a short walk along the Heritage Trail. This was a nice relaxing walk in the warm morning sun. Here we saw our first native New Zealand birds - the pukeko (also known as swamp chickens) with their bright red beaks and feet and iridescent blue/black feathers.

Continuing up SH1 we took a scenic route at Warkworth to Omaha Beach and Leigh and then looped around to Wellsford where we ate lunch. Parts of this road are gravel and steep, but safe and traveled easily at reasonable speeds. Although, the rental company would probably disagree. This is a longer route, but the countryside was pretty and we just like taking the back-roads. After a quick lunch in Wellsford we continued up SH1 to Whangarei and turned onto the Old Russell Road at Whakapara.  The road along Whangaruru Harbour has many beautiful ocean views. Near Oakura we stopped and soaked in some of these views. The beaches are rugged and the water is clear blue. It was a beautiful day, but we were starting to run out of energy and were feeling the jet lag of the time change. So we pressed on into Russell. We arrived in this quaint, small town around 3:30pm. We drove through town and over Flagstaff hill towards the Villa Helios B&B which was to be our accommodations for the next few days. The B&B is perched high at the end of Tapeka Point offering wonderful views of Roberton Island (Motuarohia), where Captian Cook landed in 1769. Villa Helios offers several nice rooms and the Tuxfords are great hosts. After a warm greeting and short tour of the house we were shown to our room where we promptly fell into bed for a short nap hoping to catch up with the time zone. After cleaning up a bit, we headed back down into Russell for dinner at the York Street Cafe. We enjoyed seafood chowder, salad and a scrumptious vegetarian pizza along with a merlot from a vineyard outside of Auckland. We even had room in our full stomachs for home-made banana-berry ice cream topped with strawberry sauce.