It was a gorgeous sunny New Years Eve morning! We made ourselves a quick breakfast of tea and toast and packed up a picnic ready for our day out.

We parked the car in an all day free space (which are so rare in NZ) and made our way to the ferry port! We purchased a 35 dollar return ticket to Urupukapuka island which was suppose to have a great snorkelling area. The ferry took 40 minutes to get to the island whilst passing through many different beautiful islands. On disembarking the ferry at Otehei Bay on Urupukapuka island, we were both blown away by how stunning the beach was. The sea looked so clear and we couldn't wait to get in to explore!

Excited and rearing to go, we swam out to the rocky area of the cove. Unfortunately, we were struggling to find a single fish! Eventually we saw a few tiny little fish and a dead starfish but other than that we didn't have much luck. The sea was gorgeous to swim around in all the same though! We sat and had our picnic and sunbathed for a little a while. Around 2.30pm we caught the ferry back to Paihia pier. We stocked up on drinks for the night and headed back to the campsite. The sun was still shinning so we decided to order a Chinese takeaway to have at the campsite. The Chinese was crazy expensive but it was our first takeaway hear so we thought it would be worth it!

To save on money and because we had the ingredients to use up, I decided to make some egg fried rice while Matt went to pick up the Chinese. I've never made it before so I had to look it up. I don't know what happened but when Matt returned, all I had in the way of egg fried rice was a rice omelette to which he really wasn't very impressed at. To make matters worse the Chinese was awful, completely tasteless and 'healthy'. Matt shared out the food while I sliced the rice omelette...well at least the champagne wouldn't be disappointing!

We toasted to the new year and caught a taxi into town to watch the firework display. We were a little early so we tried to find a bar to have a drink before 12. It's a no drinking zone on all of the streets and beach of Paihia but there were Kiwis everywhere with bottles in their hands. We managed to find a sports bar with some half decent music that didn't charge 50+ dollars to just get in the door... New Years can be such a rip off!

The firework display was good but very short and sweet. I mean it literally lasted all of 5 minutes if that, but the atmosphere was great! As soon as the fireworks finished we darted off in search of a taxi, but there wasn't a single taxi in sight. We started to walk back to the campsite which would be fine for half of it but the last half had no street lights or a pavement with a massive sign up saying "High risk crash zone". Before we got to that bit I lowered myself to sticking the old thumb out for a hitch hike lift back... I didn't care who with! Unfortunately, no miserable b***** would pick us up so we had to walk 50 minutes back with me moaning and panicking most of it... poor Matt! It had been a very different but fab NYE in the Bay of Islands!