"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can"
I'm now sitting on bus station in Paihia, waiting for my bus to Whangarei. Past 4 days just flew by in Bay Of Islands, paradise-like holiday destination in New Zealand's Northland. This place is truly beautiful, especially when weather stays good and sun shines on sea and grassy green hills surrounding the bay.
I will miss this place a bit, could have spent another day or 2 here but schedule does not permit that at the moment.
Bay Of Islands is also very important historically for few reasons. First of all town of Russell(below) is oldest town in New Zealand. Boring town these days with full of 65+ year old people :)
Secondly, its also location where british settlers made treaty with Maori to officially create country of New Zealand back in 1840. Treaty was actually made because French threatened New Zealand and british and Maori figured they better bury their differences and unite against the French. Good call, if you ask me :D Naturally I took a trip to this historical place one day. Here is the old historical Meeting House where treaty was actually signed.
On friday I went diving. Location was historically famous shipwreck, Rainbow Warrior. Now, little bit history for uneducated.
Imagine if you drill a hole through Earth starting from France, you will end up in South Pacific. Thats where French chickens decided to have their nuclear tests 1985. Needless to say Greenpeace wasn't too fond of it so they prepared their flagship Rainbow Warrior for trip there to protest nuclear tests. France didn't like them so they sent covert op team to Auckland harbour and detonated 2 bombs on Rainbow Warrior that was anchored there sinking it...and killing one portugese activist. Now, these French terrorists were captured and after months and months of talks between New Zealand and France, they were finally sent to prison in French Polynesia(=Tahiti)...hmm, doesnt sound too much like punishment to me. They were imprisoned there for 2 years until they returned to France and got hero's welcome. Well, to me this is just another good reason to hate France. ;)
Rainbow Warrior was brought back to surface and while NZ was thinking what to do with it one senator raised his hand in senate and proposed that ship would be taken to Cavalli Islands north of Auckland for recreational dive sight. Since no one had better suggestions, then thats what happened. Of course, this senator also owned a resort and dive centre in Cavalli Islands so he made quite a nice profit :) Here is picture of Cavalli Islands, Rainbow Warrior lies in front of 2nd island from the left.
Anyway, enough of history lessons. This was the wreck I went to see. Needless to say that after all the hype and history behind this vessel it was more than exciting to go down there and see it. Initially I was little scared on how I would enjoy the dive since water was only +17 here. Temperature wasn't even an issue, wet suits offered such a good protection that I hardly noticed that water was cold.
Personally I loved the dive. Coming down to 30m depth on clear sandy bottom with about 8m-10m visibility was eerie enough and when I turned, there was this huge ship in front of me. Hair on the back of my neck just rose up, it was just so eerie and exciting at same time, loved it. I had great dive and was able to explore ship much longer than I had expected. This was my dive number 9 and managed to do 45min dive which was mostly done in depth of 25m-30m. I loved diving here so much that I now will skip some of my plans and head towards Whakatane where there is one dive operator offering a unique diving experience unlike anything anywhere in world. Expensive as hell, but it only means I have to cancel some other activities on the way...but more about that dive thing later cause I don't even know if I can book it atm.
Next day was saturday and my sailing day. Apparently sailing the Bay Of Islands is one must-do thing here. There were lot of ships to choose from but I ended up going with style and chose the only Tallship they had here, R Tucker Thompson. Day was fantastic, near perfect weather, small wind so we didnt have to use engines that much and not too many people on board either. Crew also came up with all sorts of activities during trip, one which was climbing up to top mast which I just couldn't refuse.
Overall, nice chill day and amazing scenery.
So now I am waiting for my bus to Whangarei where I'll be staying just 2 nights. Only reason for my stopover in there are the Poor Knights Islands which according to Jaques Custoe, are among top 10 dive spots in entire world. We will see about that :)
On final note, its now 6th month of my travels and I think that for the first time, I feel like I actually could make return back home. No, I am not coming back just yet, but I do feel like I can return back to work again. I feel like batteries have finally been recharged and most of the questions I needed an answer have an answer now. Still, life at the moment is just so damn cool that I don't want to come back too early ;)
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