On this trip we decided to take a ferry over to the village of Russell which is the original settlement on the Bay of Islands and was at one time (1840 – 1844) the capital of New Zealand. The ferry trip took about fifteen minutes. In the 19th Century, Russell was known as ‘the hell-hole of the Southwest Pacific’ but the demise of the whaling industry calmed the place down.
Building c. 1860 
Post box on Queen’s Street 
An old tree 
Christ Church 
Frances & Randy on Russell’s waterfront 
Old cannon
Tourism is now the main industry ofRussell. The village has two main streets, the waterfront and Queens Street one block back from the water front.
We spent about three hours wandering around. Then we had some ice cream. Used free WiFi to check our email and then headed back to the ferry.
Honey’s garden 
Again, we visited the Bay of Islands on our 2017 World Cruise and you can review our blog about that visit here: http://whereintheworldarefrancesandrandy.com/day-18-bay-of-islands-new-zealand-february-7-2017/