If you’re heading to bay of islands I‘ll recommend you to stay at kat & rado‘s beautiful studio. It‘s really quite and still only a 10 minutes drive to Paihia. I was there for one week without a car and they offered me rides to Paihia all the time. Communication was easy and really good. And Rado even made a pizza for me on the last evening.
Living there feels like your living in the bushes and you can listen to the beautiful sound of nature. Really superb value for money you‘re getting here.