Left nice an early and headed up to Paihia in the Bay of Islands stopping off for coffee and breakfast on the way. Spoke to a really nice girl on the bus from Belfast (Louise) and will be doing the first bit of the trip with her now and three other guys she knows that are coming tomorow. When we got there we saw a few viewpoints out to the islands and then chilled out on the beach. In the evening we went for a few drinks with Debrah from Canada, Wil a girl from Holland and a few local kiwis. Played a bit of pool...badly!!

The next day up really early again and went on the dolphin boat trip. The first thing we saw after about an hour was a whale!!! It kept coming out of the water and blowing out the water! Then a few times in actually jumped up and landed on its side. Was really amazing, the people said that its very rare to see a whale up here so we were lucky. About an hour later we then found a pod of wild dolphins, unfortunately we werent aloud to swim with them because they had some baby ones with them and thats against the law to swim if baby ones around. But was brill nevertheless cause they put on a real show, jumping in and out swimming under the boat and on their backs. At one point three jumped up vertically and span round, looked like they were dancing. Couldnt get a photo quick enough but did get a few others. Was really good trip. On the way back from there we got off the boat at a little place called Russel and me and Louise had some fish and chips there for lunch and had a walk around. Was really pretty old place with some lovely houses. Took a pic of the police station cause it looked like a cross between a church and a house! In the afternoon went on the interent and had a nap.