Day 3: It's a bit obvious

We picked up a car this lunchime, or rather we were picked up from the hotel by the hire company. On our first day we had been given some general advice about car rentals and had headed out along the main road to find a suitable company. We got so far along the and then concluded that we taken a wrong turn, so headed back into town and a glass of sauvignon blanc. Turns out that if we had kept going for another 30 seconds, we would have found ourselves in the car-hire-hot-spot of Auckland.

We then proceeded to have quite some trouble finding a good car, taking quite a lot of time in the travel information centre. In the end we've got a perfectly good car, albeit a bit old and with a fully veloured set of seats, but it does have air conditioning so that's really good!


We've driven north to Paihia (pronounced pay here) in the Bay of Islands. Deciding against the obvious we chose to take Danny's "scenic, it would be really nice to see the coast, and it's really not that much further" route. This had truly stunning views but was really like driving a 90 km roller coaster. Twisty would describe it.

Checking our path towards the hotel, Danny read the first line of the location description which said 'Russell is best reached by ferry' which piqued our interest. Further piquing was achieved when, about ready to turn left and head inland, we saw a large body of water in our way. Almost like an ocean, in fact.

As the concept of having to redo the last 2 hours of our journey sank in, we were relieved to find the ferry across, and that it took cars.

Actually, hotel isn't quite the word. It's a collection a cabins set into the hillside. It's like staying in our own tree house!