So from the top of the South island to the top of the North...Nelson seems a distant memory as we enjoy the sunshine up in the 'Winter-less North'!

We had a slightly bumpy journey back across the Cook Straight, but were soon once again on the North island, and it felt like only days since we left rather than weeks! Unfortunately the weather had changed some what since we were last there, and on arriving in a very rainy Wellington we decided not to stick around. We only had 5 nights left til we had to be back in Auckland to return the van and we had a couple of places left to visit...hence a couple of days of pretty much solid driving to gain some ground.

We had an overnight stop in Palmerston North and another in Hamilton before we got up past Auckland and to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. We did however find time to stop in Waitomo on the way up for a look around their famous glow worm caves. They were excellent! Inside the cave was lit up in parts so visitors didn't all take a tumble, but sections were quite dark so you could see the glow worms, when you looked up it was like looking up at a night sky filled with stars! But so many! The poor things spend about a year living attached to the roof of the cave, trapping and devouring any unlucky passing flying insects, then hatch into gnats that live about 3 days, seems rather a lot of effort! But, they are very impressive to see! We took a short boat ride inside the cave which was a bit strange but excellent, it was eerily quiet and so dark except for the thousands of tiny lights up and around us - definitely worth a stop off!

We attempted a trip to 'Middle Earth' - the set of Hobbiton in Lord of the Rings, but when we arrived there wasn't another tour for quite a while and sadly we didn't have time to wait. I say sadly, but mainly that's for Nick as I was more interested in the sheep show they also had! Ah well...we saw a bit of 'Hobbiton', but as Nick pointed out, most of the landscapes in the film were heavily edited with CGI so none of the sets will actually look like the reality anyway!

So after a couple of days rumbling along in the van we were ready to get 'somewhere' when we reached the Bay of Islands, so named by Lieutenant James Cook when he first navigated NZ (he had a couple of hairy encounters with the local Maori on his journey too as we keep hearing about, but anyway...). It is hardly the most imaginative of names, as it is a bay of 144 islands, but still, it fits in a country where the northern most island is called the North Island and the bottom one is the South Island! Also, the area we were in was called (wait for it..), Northland!

We landed in a small town called Paihia which was beautifully set overlooking the bay which leads out to the Pacific Ocean. After a stroll along the front and a good stretch of the legs, we looked into the vast array of different options to get out on the water and tried to choose which was for us. After a fair while of umming and arring, we plumped for an afternoon boat trip around the bay and dolphin spotting, but that would have to wait til tomorrow.

So (not so) bright and breezy the next day (!) we set sail on the good ship, err, well catamaran actually, and I don't know what it was called, but anyway, it was a nice yellow boat! We had been gone less than 5 minutes when the Skipper notified us we had spotted our first pod of dolphins for the day, goody! Sadly, they didn't seem to want to play so we left them alone and carried on further out to sea, and swiftly found another pod who were much more fun! They were Bottlenose dolphins, and they were having a fab time swimming around at the surface and showing off to all the people on the boats watching, we even got a couple of jumps from them. As the other boat nearby left, they were playing in it's wake, in and out of the surf, excellent!

Some people had decided to swim with the dolphins, so a bit further on when we had some more who chose to 'play' with us, a few brave souls donned wet suits and fins and leaped into the chilly water to chase the fishies, who just seemed to toy with them by swimming off! It seemed a bit of a farce and we were both glad we decided against the swimming option, as people were hauled back on the boat and taken a bit closer before jumping in again and being shouted at to 'swim swim!!' by the boat crew. It was much more entertaining for us, as from the top deck we could see the dolphins really well and also laugh at the fools flailing around in the water trying to spot them, ha!

A bit later we got to see the dolphins really close from the back of the boat, as they swam after us and were leaping in and out of the water, doing back-flips and all sorts! They were a lot bigger than I imagined they would be, but so graceful and quick in the water, plus they seemed to love playing with the boats and entertaining us!

We headed further out to where the bay meets the Pacific, and the 'Hole in the Rock' that we had been taken to see, literally a huge rock island jutting out of the water with a tunnel going through that the boat went through to give us all a good view! We saw some fur seals enjoying the sunshine from another island, as we were watching them one of them put up it's flipper as though it was waving which was funny, how friendly!

Then we had a stop off for half an hour on one of the islands which was ace as as we arrived another load of tourists left, so there was only our trip there, about 30 people on the whole island! Nick set off with everyone else for a short walk up to a vantage point to enjoy some views back across the bay, but I decided to stay put and enjoy the sun. It was lovely, I laid out on the grass and it was so quiet, it felt like we were a million miles from anywhere!

The next day we drove on a bit further North and headed through a small town called KeriKeri and then somewhere with a fantastic name - Cooper's Beach!! I didn't stop to claim it though, thought I'd be nice and leave it to the towns-folk!! Basically we spent all day driving around through various small towns and a huuuuge forest and we stayed over in a town called Dargaville, which should seriously consider changing it's name to Dullesville...but anyway!

So now we are actually back in Auckland, the van is gone (shockingly, I didn't weep at this) and we are getting ready to fly to Tonga in a few days, we cannot wait!! We will try and get in some sight seeing in the next day or so, which shouldn't be hard as we are staying right in the centre of town!

Hope everyone is well...we are both in fine spirits. New Zealand has been fantastic and we have had loads of fun, there is so much to do! We thought 5 weeks would be plenty of time but as it turns out it was only just enough! Anyway...next stop Tonga, after all I think you'll agree that we deserve a rest!

Katie and Nick xxx

Just a brief final word to Carrie...'PUSH! PUSH! Breathe...breathe and PUSH! PUSH! Good luck getting that baby out!'