The trip to Paihia is the same as the trip to Kerikeri, so if you have an interest in this aspect of the journey please read my post ‘Auckland to Kerikeri’. The variation is that Paihia is on the Pacific coast about 20 km east of Kerikeri.
Paihia is like Kerikeri’s evil twin, it’s where you go looking for a good time. It is also a place with a split personality, one side is cultural history, the other is cultural hedonism.
History
Paihia is sited in the Bay of Islands, a stunningly attractive coastal area with many islands.

At one time it also had whales. Unfortunately for the whales they also made good oil. During the eighteenth century lots of people turned up to hunt them. These people were not known for their social niceties. Their degenerate behavior also attracted missionaries, who tried to alter their behavior. It didn’t work, but the whalers soon ran out of whales so went somewhere else. The missionaries stayed and developed a reasonably amicable relationship with the Maori people who owned the land. The British Government of the time decided that New Zealand was worth having as a colony. They sent out a guy called Hobson who together with the missionaries negotiated with the Maori chiefs to transfer their land to Britain in return for having the rights of British Subjects. The importance of this to Paihia is that the treaty between Maori and the British was signed at Waitangi, which is a suburb of Paihia. This makes Paihia the cradle of civilisation for Europeans in New Zealand. Maori already had a perfectly good civilisation and clearly did not understand that British Subjects had crap all rights. Thus the treaty ended up as the usual colonial land grab. Maori understood this pretty quickly and various wars were fought and lost. Needless to say Waitangi is a focus of Maori discontent over European conquest.
Not withstanding the above Waitangi is a delightful place with a great museum, nice bush areas, golf course and hardly any whalers.
Hedonism
Paihia was the place to go, then it wasn’t, then it was, then it wasn’t and currently it is on the rise again. It’s varying popularity is evidenced by a weird collection of hotels and motels whose architecture reflects the worse aspects of what was trendy during the up periods. This makes it kind of interesting. The glorious location makes this a magnet for two distinct groups of people, rich ones and backpackers.

The rich ones arrive on boats and helicopters and fish for marlin. Not a particularly interesting group unless you are part of it. The key to Paihias vibe is the back packer crowd. This is a very large demographic easily outnumbering all other visitors and probably residents as well. The backpacker enclave is a site to behold, a couple of streets filled with converted motels, hotels, and other undefinable structures, interspersed with bars, restaurants and clubs.

If you want to practice your language skills this is the place to be, just make sure its early in the day when people are reasonably coherent. Backpackers travel in a variety of ways, but the most popular methods are camper vans and old cars. When in Paihia you will notice these clustered in car parks like gypsy encampments. When leaving Paihia you will be in a very long line of traffic, at the front will be a camper or car full of backpackers going 70km at full throttle. This is not so much of a problem as it may seem because you will have lots of time to enjoy the fantastic Bay of Islands scenery.