Kayak, swim and sail your way around the Bay of Islands
New Zealand’s Bay of Islands is the ultimate maritime playground. Blessed with sheltered coves and white-sand beaches, it’s the perfect place for boating, fishing and dolphin spotting. Our Bay of Islands holidays promise a tranquil and unhurried experience. Spend days sailing around unpopulated islands before dining on fresh seafood in the marina.
It’s also the birthplace of New Zealand as a nation, the place where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. But the history lesson doesn’t end there. The islands also include Kerikeri, home to New Zealand's oldest standing European buildings. The Stone Store and Kerikeri Mission House were both built in the first half of the 1800s. Take an island cruise from Paihia, the main tourist town on the islands, where you can swim with dolphins or take a trip to the spectacular Cape Brett and Piercy Island.
Our expert guides will take you to the historic town of Russell, which was briefly the country's capital. Find out how it became the first permanent European settlement. Its rowdy reputation led to it being called the ‘Hell hole of the Pacific’. It’s hard to imagine, when visiting this quaint seaside village, that it was once a rough and rugged whaling station.