hello everybody, we arrived in Auckland on Sunday afternoon and made our way to the hostel, where we had our own room with a TV - Luxury!!! we spent 3 nights in Auckland before deciding to rent a campervan to take us around the country. On the first night we stayed in Paihia, a small town in the Bay of Islands we have run out of internet time so will finish this 2moro

sorry xxxxxxxx

Hello Everyone, got some more internet time so back to finish the Blog! It was Witangi Day (not sure how to spell) when we arrived in the Bay of Islands, which is like a Maouri public holiday, where you get loads of gypsies etc! We stayed in a small campsite with our van and as it was the first night surrounded by gypsies we were a little scared we would have the fuel chipered from our van!! We then made our way on what we thought would be a good trip to the famous 90 mile beach. As it turns out it was a hell of a long drive to a long beach with not much else on it & an empty campsite where the owner had given up and gone home - obviously it wasn't even worth him being there to get money from the few that did go! Feeling rather disappointed we decided to head to Cape Reinga, the northern most point of New Zealand, where you can see the Tasman Sea & Pacific Ocean collide. The Kiwi's version of a motorway is more like our version of an "A" Road, and are notoriously windy - not great when you are in a campervan full of dirty dishes sliding around!! Unfortunately, around 30km away from Cape Reinga the motorway turned into a gravel track! We decided to make our way down it anyway, but came across nothing but angry people trying to get past us as we were driving rather slowly & we found nothing but a secluded bay at the end of the track! Feeling lost and a still more disappointed we decided to make the long journey back to KeriKeri to stay the night. KeriKeri is a cute little town in the Bay of Islands, near to Paihia where we first stopped off. The next day we did a Catamaran sailing trip round the islands and got to stop off at a remote island where we had a delicious bbq lunch, snorkelled (we saw one fish!), kayaked & Ru tried kneeboarding - your knees are literally strapped to a board and you hold onto a rope whilst a boat pulls you along. We both thoroughly enjoyed the day trip. We got up early the next morning and headed back to Auckland where we decided to have a goodbye celebration as we were leaving Abi (the girl that we have been travelling with). We had a few drinks & Ru managed to convince us all to do a bungy ball! It is basically a three seater ball in the city centre which you are strapped into and then plummeted high into the air whilst doing 360 degree turns - scary! It was really fun & we all felt a bit croaky after from all the screaming.
We left Abi behind on Sunday morning and started the drive to the Coromandel Peninsula. There was some amazing scenery on the way up there. We arrived at Wiatanga last night where we stayed over night. Today we went on a glass bottomed boat, where we saw a few of the interesting sights around the Coromandel. Ru had a quick snorkel where she saw a Moki fish! We are heading over to the Hot Water Beach at low tide to dig our own spa pools in the sand which we are both looking forward to. Tonight we will be driving to Rotuora where we hope to soak up some of the Maouri culture and see the bubbling mud pools and maybe a spot of white water rafting, and then on to Taupo for a bit of an adrenaline adventure with a bungy jump or two!
Will update more again as soon as we can. Hope you're all OK & not feeling too jealous of the beautiful weather out here!!!

All our love,
Ru & Ce xxx