Mousetraps and Tourist Traps (Jan. 22-23)

Paihia is a small but popular resort town in a region known as the Bay of Islands about an hour north of Whangarei, and was our next stop. Paihia has a bit of a reputation as a tourist trap, and to our mind, it lived up (or down, depending on your perspective) to that reputation. There are myriad cruises to choose from that depart from Paihia to see the Bay of Islands, swim with dolphins, and so on, but having just had a rather touristy experience on our tour bus to Cape Reinga, we decided not to take in any of the cruises. Plus, they seemed rather exorbitant. We know that we’ll be spending a bit of money on this trip that we won’t be recouping no matter how hard we hustle in picking kiwifruit, or whatever, but laying out NZ$90 each for a cruise just didn’t appeal to us.

Anyway, we took in Paihia with its small beach over the next couple days, bunking at another hostel, Mousetrap Backpackers, which with its maze of rooms and winding halls was pretty much as advertised. It was nice, but was directly across the street from some popular backpackers bars. With the Kiwi Experience in town on one of the nights, the partying could be heard until rather late. I guess we’re old, so we skipped the bar scene, but we hardly missed much from our room, and learned that Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” is popular in just about every country that sends backpackers to NZ.

The band as overheard from the bar: “And now just the Germans!”

The crowd – “La la la la la la la la la la la-la-ti-da!”

It certainly sounded like a magical night of international bonding, or something along those lines…

While in Paihia, we also visited the building where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the Maoris and the British in 1840, effectively beginning the nation of New Zealand. It’s an interesting historical site, perhaps like NZ’s Liberty Hall? Probably the most interesting parts of the site were the Maori meeting house and waka, or war canoe, that were built for Waitangi Day celebrations and are on still on display.

Maori War Canoe

Maori Meeting House

Carving on top of the meeting house

We also visited Russell, just a short ferry ride from Paihia, and what was once known as the “Hell-hole of the Pacific” due to its lawlessness and brothels frequented by sailors in the 1800s. You wouldn’t know it to visit the town today, however. I was hoping to possibly snag a “Hell-hole of the Pacific” t-shirt or see some historical buildings, but we really felt Russell was a bit of a bust. It’s basically a small tourist town without any buildings of obvious historical interest left standing these days. In any event, I generally like any excuse to take a ferry, so that was alright.

Overall, we were pretty unimpressed by our Paihia experience, and wouldn’t really recommend it unless you’re dying to swim with the dolphins or take some other sort of cruise. We know we’ve been spoiled by the empty beaches elsewhere, but Paihia felt like the most American beach town we’ve been to here in NZ yet, with its stores, hotels, and whatnot. Oh well, southward we go…