Ok, as we said before, after visiting the Hobbiton site, we got back on the boat and set sail for Auckland, where we got off the ship and headed for our hotel, The Grand Mercure, just a very short walk from the harbour front (one reason we picked it, although it read well as well).

Of course, when we sailed across to the island of Waiheke, we fully expected to visit some Wineries, but again as we said, due to the Treaty Day, almost all were closed – ahhhh. 🍷🍷👫

Aukland was very very busy, with construction work going on all over the place, so we jumped on a couple of hop on hop off bus trips and explored the city that way during the day and in the evening strolled around the very picturesque harbour front, with loads of bars and restaurants, for a drink and a meal.

After a couple of days, we picked up our hire car and set off to explore more of the North Island of New Zealand, with our first stop, some four hours north of Aukland, a little town called Paihia, which was in the area, known as the Bay of Islands.

This is the view from our hotel in Aukland, on the day we left.

One good thing about driving in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand is that sensibly, they all drive on the ‘proper’ side of the road, like the UK, you know, the left side, ahhh that’s so easy 👍👍👫

This lovely place (Paihia) was just about a mile away from the sacred Waitangi Treaty Ground, where the Treaty between the Moari leaders and the British Crown, which started being talked about in 1839, was finally was signed in 1860, a hundred and sixty years ago.

This is the view from our room, across the Bay of Islands on the day we arrived, a great little motel called Breakwater Motel.

Any golfer who things hitting across water is problem, look at this, you can’t see it, but the tee is just across the bay (honest 😂😂).

We had a great guided tour of the Treaty grounds and also a Moari greetings dance, where out of a group of about 40 tourists, one of us was selected to be the Chief of the Tourist Tribe for the day (guess which one!).

The Chief had to greet the Moari warriors on behalf of his ‘tribe’, in the traditional way, by rubbing noses and by touching foreheads! 😂😂 a very big honour 👍👍 and to make matters worse, I (whoops, we mean HE), had to make a speech and welcome the Moari people in the traditional way, by saying Koari, which means Hello (we think).

It really was a great day out and one that gave much food for thought as to how we (The British Empire) ended up with so much land that originally belonged to the original people! 👿👿, not just here, but in many of the 54 countries around the world, that made up the British Empire in those days.

The next day, we took a ferry across the bay to a town called Russell, which 100 plus years ago, was where the sailors went for some R&R after being at sea for several months and it had a reputation as being a bit rough and ready, with some 30 pubs, which was rather a lot, for a town with a permanent population of only around 100!

However, now it is a quaint tourist town, full of colonial style buildings and one really great tourist attraction – see below 👍👍

The next day, saw us take a boat ride to explore the Bay of Islands and to see if we could see any Dolphins and luckily, we did👍👍

As well as seeing the Dolphins and seeing many of the Islands that make up this bay, we also did a very tricky trip through the ‘Hole in the Rock’ – fortunately, although the tour boat was quite a big one, the Captain managed to squeeze it through this very tiny hole 👍👍👍

We also saw several shoals of fish, being eaten by predators under the water and the seagulls above, don’t know how they survive, there must be a hell of a lot of them.

On the way back, so it must be nearly 5 o’clock 😂😂👫

It must be getting close to G&T time, so that’s all for now as it’s up early for another long land trip, about 5 to 6 hours, to explore some more of this great country.