Christmas in the Bay of Islands!

After our great trip up to the far north we had a deadline to get to the Bay of Islands to meet my parents! It was all very exciting as we hadn´t seen them since Belize in July! They arrived in New Zealand, after a lovely long cruise from Greece over to Singapore, on the 19th Dec and we were to meet them up in Russell, our Christmas destination on the 22nd. So we travelled down from Cape Reinga, stopping at some lovely beaches around Doubtless Bay. We also met up with Tom the night before and caught up on our travel stories from the past week or so! We stayed at a bay called Matauri Bay with Tom and we witnessed the most amazing sky I have ever seen! The whole sky went a really dark pink and purple, it was almost like the night was on fire!

The next day we drove in convoy down to Paihia and got the car ferry over to tiny little Russell. Russell was actually the first village to be occupied by the Europeans in the early 19th century and also lays claim to New Zealand´s oldest church built in 1836! It is a sweet little town now with a fish and chip shop, a few waterside restaurants and a great beach about a kilometre away.

We met Mum and Dad and had an excitable reunion in Hananoi Lodge, where we were staying for the Christmas period. It was a gorgeous apartment and it was such a luxury to stay in a room with a TV and have a big kitchen and living area, slightly different to what we have been used to in the van!! It was lovely to see Mum and Dad too!

It was all very odd having Christmas away from home and in such a warm country, so so different to England! For weeks before, Chris and I had been trying to get in the Christmas spirit, we´d played Christmas carols in the van and decorated it with fairy lights..but it just didn´t work, we didn´t feel Christmassy at all. So I´d decided this week it was going to happen- it was going to feel like Christmas- my family were all here, we put a Christmas tree up and decorated it beautifully, we played Christmas carols literally 24/7, drank a large amount of wine, ate mince pies, Christmas cake, chocolates (we ate a lot that week..as you should at Christmas!) but it still didn´t really ever feel like Christmas! And to be honest it was quite a relief when Christmas Day was over and we could stop playing those damn carols and stop trying to feel Christmassy! The pressure was off at last!

Christmas Day was certainly different! The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day! Sophie, Matt, Olivia and Alice came over for drinks in the morning- it was so good to see them again, they were also spending Christmas in Russell! We then had a traditional Christmas fry up, spent about 4 hours recovering from that and then went out to a restaurant on the beach for Christmas dinner.

We watched an amazing sunset over the water from our table..it was great! Unfortunately they don´t really do the traditional turkey roast for Christmas, but to mine and Chris´delight they served up sushi as a starter!! Perfect! We ate a lot that night and finished off with a traditional Kiwi desert- pavlova! Mmmn!! I ate way too much and could hardly walk home.

On Boxing Day we had a great kiwi style BBQ on the beach with the Sticklands. Matt once again cooked an enormous amount of meat and Chris once again, ate most of it!

We played with the girls on the beach and a few brave ones, including Sophie and Matt ventured into the freezing sea!! I gave that one a miss!

The rest of the week we chilled out around Russell, the boys played a lot of football, we ate a lot of food and we took some kayaks out into the bay one afternoon which was fun.

One of the main sights and activities to do while in the Bay of Islands is a boat trip out to see the beautiful paradise islands in the lovely turquoise blue water and to also spot dolphins! So we decided on a day and booked a trip. Unfortunately we decided on the final day we were there..and this was unfortunate because it was raining all day. It was so miserable, we hadn´t seen weather like this the whole time we had been there..how unlucky!! However, we decided to brave the rain and go ahead with the boat trip anyway. We got on the boat and quickly realised this was going to be terrible and maybe we shouldn´t have bothered. It was horrible.

The day changed for the better though when the boat slowed down and the captain told us there were a school of dolphins just below! It was amazing, there were literally about 30 of them all circling the boat, jumping out of the water and generally just playing around! It was wonderful..and it made the trip so worthwhile!!

It was very sad to leave Russell, we all had such a great time there and completely fell in love with the town itself! My favourite thing about Russell were the beautiful sunsets every night- they were incredible. I have a feeling we´ll be back to Russell in the not so distant future..