Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Day 321: Russell

In the morning I went up a short walk of the hill next to town and decided that there really wasn't all that much to do in Paihia. Most of the tourism draws involve boating, either by sailing out into the bay or going on fishing excursions, and neither of those were interesting enough for what it would cost me. Instead I took the ferry across part of the bay to visit the town of Russell. Russell was also small, but I spent an hour walking along the beach and shore and found a trail heading up into the forest. The area around here was protected kiwi grounds and I saw a handful of kiwis running about, although they were quite shy and none stuck around very long. The trail ultimately came out in a little neighborhood of maybe 10 houses completely cut off from everything else, and I had to follow along the road for awhile. Eventually I found another trail heading up to Flagstaff Hill (I think), which gave a nice lookout down at the town and over the bay.


After getting back down I had a late lunch and sat by the docks, watching the fishing parties come back with their catches. The day's winner? Definitely this guy.


That's an 82kg striped marlin, for those interested.

Eventually I took the ferry back to Paihia and spent most of the evening chatting with my roommates and just generally lounging around.

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