Well I had heard grand things about this place and wasn't disappointed. It wasn't too far from Paihia we got there by about 10.30am. We were met at the information centre where the bus dropped us off by the most lovely lady originally from Yorkshire, Sue. She was an absolute gem, she had bought the hostel with her retirement money which she had taken early after realising that a nurses pention wasn't going to provide enough for her, and she never looked back. Very brave I say just upping and leaving England like that, luckily her son followed her and had been helping her out with the internet and marketing side of things. The hostel was great, it only had 19 beds and it had people there that had arrived for a couple of nights but ended up staying a week. We walked in to a bit of Frank Sinatra playing in the cosy lounge! But where was I; yes Sue picked us up and gave us a tour of the tiny village and took us up to the scenic look out over the entrance to the Hokianga harbour. She then nipped us to the next village, Opononi, so I could go to the butchers - I got three lamb cutlets (big ones) for 1.60, bargain!

I went for a walk with the girls I arrived with, Julie the Canadian and another rather annoying Canadian called Sharon (big and ginger). The weather wasn't great though and the tide was in so it was a bit difficult to get round the coast. So I headed back and spent a lovely cosy afternoon chilling with my Australian lonely planet planning the next part of my trip.

The following day we had a grand day out at the house of a really nice Maori couple, James and Charlotte (I think they were in their 50's), they really made us feel at home and did us a lovely lunch. That second night we headed out on "Footprints Waipoua" one of lonely planets "Experiences of a lifetime". We basically had a maori guide called Bill who took us (just us three girls had booked on this evening - it had been full the night before with 22 people!) into the forest to see the biggest Kauri trees in NZ. He stopped and explained how the Maori thought of the forest and how they used to use certain plants while singing prayers on the way in and to the trees (all in Maori) which sounded absolutely great. It was meant to be pretty spiritual, especially when he started playing the flute. However the annoying Sharon with her stupid accent kept asking stupid bloody questions which took away from the mood a bit but I was still pretty moved and felt lucky to have experienced the evening.

I was sad to move on the following morning to head back to Auckland again, I would of loved to stay an extra day!