We went to Russell…

And it turns out he’s just delightful.

So today was about travelling around and seeing more of this absolutely stunning land. After I knocked out another short story. I’ve now written six on this retreat. Most of them 2000 words or less, some of them requiring more work than others, a couple of them just very, very weird. Like todays, about an inherited piece of jewellery that in the hands of a psycopath means something else…

So we set out and our first stop was the HuraHura Falls, which barely rate being mentioned. I mean, I guess they’re okay, for a waterfall, but Russell and Kylie have a better one in their backyard!

Next was to Waitangi. I was really looking forward to see – seeing the actual place that such an important moment in the history of New Zealand took place. Except they wanted to charge the non-Kiwis $25 a piece to get in! Now, I don’t mind paying to go into attractions, and if I’d known what was in there maybe it would have seemed worth it, but considering you had to pay extra again for the cultural activities… we all decided it was too rich for our blood. So, I can say I’ve kinda been to the place where the treaty was signed.

Very disappointing.

From there we went to Paihiri and had a lovely look at the Bay of Islands, then onto the car ferry across to Russell. First trip on a car ferry and I thought it was pretty cool.

View from where we had lunch.

Russell itself is an absolute delight. It was once the hellhole of the pacific and a whalers town, but now it’s a delightful old town with many buildings extremely well cared for.

We had lunch with a lovely view over the bay. As you can see, the weather was just perfect. Then we split up and all went our own ways.

I wandered into a shop where I found the traditional present Hubbie and I give each other (no, I won’t share it with you but he’ll be happy) and I found a gorgeous little paua bracelet, very cheap and so I was able to keep up my tradition of buying a piece of jewellery on a FWOR retreat.

Then I went to the Russell Museum. They have a whaleboat out the back and it was really interesting to see just how small the boats were that they went out in to harpoon and drag back whales to the main ship.

The musuem itself had some interesting artefacts, including one display where you could put your hands in and feel some moa bones and Kauri gum. There was some gorgeous weaving, a 1/5th scale replica of the Endeavour and lots of Maori weapons. There was also lots of stuff from the original European settlement, making it a very interesting mix.

I found a little gallery that didn’t have much and then caught up with most of the rest of the gang – Donna, Matthew, Trudi and Paul. They were near the French mission. Trudi bought out the mission store and it would have been great to go see, particularly the book printing and binding area they had but it was time to meet up with Russell and Kylie again.

We all got icecream. Well, most of us got icecream – you know, on a cone. Donna, however, got the motherlode -

Donna's sundae.

We ended the trip to Russell by driving up to Flagstaff Hill. There’s a fabulous story of a local Maori chief who, incensed that the treaty of Waitangi wasn’t being adhered to, cut down the flagpole not once, not twice, not even three times but four.

Here is the view:

View of Russell and Bay of Islands from Flagstaff Hill

Gorgeous, right?

Finally, here’s a little something – I’m going to give a pdf of Secret Ones to the first person who can guess where I was sitting when I took the following photo:

Where was Nicole sitting when she took this picture?

FWORians need not enter

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