We've escaped Auckland yippee! We caught the bus/coach up to Paihia in the Bay of Islands this morning and arrived early afternoon. It's very pretty here - it looks sort of tropical which totally confused me as it's not scenery I'd have expected in New Zealand. That's probably a completely ridiculous thing to say though because I suppose the whole point of New Zealand is that the landscape is massively diverse.
The bay here is full of... wait for it... islands! I like the fact the Kiwis are continuing the Australian tradition of calling a spade a spade! Anyway, there are lots of little islands, covered in greenery, rising out of the water. And you can see a little town called Russell across the bay, which is somewhere we plan to visit during our stay here.
It's not really been an eventful one to be honest but I'm in a much better mood. We checked into our hostel, which is lovely and full of random pets including a cat, three dogs and a parrot with a zip fetish who has destroyed my bag. Unfortunately, the owners have put us in a double room instead of a twin by mistake but they're just so nice that we don't want to ruin their day by telling them. Plus, apparently it's a bank holiday weekend here, which we didn't know about, so we're lucky to have a room at all.
After that we had a mooch about the 'town' (one street) before going for a delicious tea in a vaguely swanky restaurant where the lamb and fish were perfectly cooked and the white russians were flowing (and Jim actually got laughed at by the waiter for ordering a gay drink).
It's forecast rain tomorrow but we're off for a hike anyway so expect lots of photos of me looking miserable in a kagoul.
Love you loads xxx