Paihia is hot, hot, hot! Literally. Here in the Bay of Islands it is bikini weather, quite frankly, and I’m a little envious of the girls toting their beach bags and flip-flopping in their jandals down the footpath, heading for the sands of Te Ti Beach (just a quick walk around the headland from Paihia central). But coffee calls, and you know how that goes! So I’m heading, instead, for Franks Pizza Bar Grill, where tables spilling out onto the street are full-up with punters sipping their 5 o’clock chardonnays and good Kiwi beer. Inside, I join the girls writing in their travel journals (is it that the timber-hewn tables invite pen and paper, or is it that the laid-back soundtrack of Kruder & Dorfmeister is a tempo that sets creative juices flowing?) and peruse the menu while I wait at the counter. If you’re a pizza fanatic, this is clearly a good place to indulge. But, as I said, coffee calls – and when you’re in serious need of a flat white, nothing else will do!
Feeling properly invigorated, I head across the road to the waterfront and nose around the wharf, soaking up the atmosphere as a couple of buff young guys make post-sailing adjustments to the Sail NZ catamaran and travellers queue for the next Paihia to Russell ferry. On another boat, a bunch of guys are enjoying a few beers and passing round a guitar, while out on the water a Maori waka cuts across the bay, paddles plying the water in unison under a faded blue-jean sky. Someone told me later that you can join a group on board one of these traditional Maori canoes and paddle past Waitangi right up to Haruru Falls (a horseshoe-shaped waterfall three kilometres from Paihia).
But right now attentions are diverted by a launch coming in to berth – an angler aboard The Irish Rover has reeled in a 141.6 kilogram Striped Marlin on a 37 kilogram line. This rather impressive achievement draws a curious crowd of onlookers to watch as the enormous fish is transferred to the dock for its official weigh-in. Tremendously sleek, with icy blue eyes and a remarkable pointed bill, you can imagine it put up a fair fight against the angler who’s no doubt still feeling the effects of the adrenaline-rush. Feisty species like Marlin and Mako Shark have drawn keen anglers to the Bay of Islands for decades – way back in 1926, Zane Grey made the place world-famous when he wrote about it in one of his bestsellers. But today it’s this lucky angler who will be telling his own big fish stories – the latest in a long Bay of Islands tradition.