Exploring Russell and Waitangi

We hadn't made any concrete plans for today, but after a healthy müsli breakfast (oh, so good!), we set off to the ferry wharf.
We decided to take a look at Russell, the nation's very first capital (back in 1840).

The ferry to Russell took only about 10 minutes.
Russell itself is a very quaint little town, with not much going on in winter *haha*

We walked up a little hill to look at a famous "flagstaff." In 1845, during the "Flagstaff Wars," Hone Heke, a Maori warrior, repeatedly felled down the flagstaff flying the British flag, challenging the British rule in the area.

Down in the town, we looked at some small shops full of useless little knick-knacks. We decided to skip the museum (probably not much different than the one in Auckland) but we did stop by the Department of Conservation house.
The Department of Conservation set up a small museum in Russell, with information about the wild life in the area, as well as some information about the geological aspects of the Bay of Islands (different kinds of rocks on the islands, major volcanic erruptions that shaped the area, etc).
They kept the information short, relevant, and to the point - very nice if you don't have a day to spend at a museum!

We stopped for lunch in a small cafe (the only one that was open around this time of the year). The food was pretty good. We ended up staying a little longer, because half way through dessert, the heavens opened once again. This was the first major rain shower of the day, though, so we just sat it out in front of cups of hot coffee and tea :)

That was pretty much all that was going on in Russell, so we took the ferry back to Paihia and walked North, on the beach, towards Waitangi.

Waitangi is the place where the British and the Maori signed the "Treaty of Waitangi" in 1840. This treaty was supposed to give the Maori the rights of British citizens. However, the English and the Maori language versions of the treaty differed slightly, leading to a long debate (still being discussed today) about the rights given to each group.

We decided not to go into the museum after all (I can only take so many museums in one day... *haha*).
Unfortunately, the walk to the Haruru water falls was closed (curtesy of the storms from a few weeks ago), so we looked around the golf course instead :)

By now, it began to get darker. We walked back to Paihia, played some cards at the hostel (not much of a night life here in the winter) and got a late dinner at the beachhouse.