Northland... going down As the weather had vastly improved we decided to go back to Kerikeri as we didn't get to see much of it last time. Turns out it was a good choice, Kerikeri is part of the Bay of Islands just minus a beach, what it does have however are some very nice walks with waterfalls, cafes, the oldest stone building in NZ aptly named The Stone House and best of all a parrot sanctuary! The guy who works there was happy to tell us his vast knowledge...

End of the world maybe?

The next morning the heavens opened and dispite my nerves having to drive a large hired car round the twistyest narrow roads i ever been on, much of which was almost vertical in places, we made it in one piece to The Bay of Islands. We stopped in Paihia for a couple of days and i feel bad for saying it, especially as i had been so looking forward to coming here, it wasn't as nice as i had hoped. By the end of the first day Kev had christened it the Bay of Dead...

Auckland.. again. After a very pleasent and easy flight into Auckland i can't say i wasn't sorry to be back. It was the start of our own mini adventure in New Zealand, so far we had been driven around both islands and shown all the main tourist attractions and we have had a lot of fun but i was ready to be back in control. After much deliberation and tea we finally settled on hiring a spaceship, this is strays sister company and rents orange MPV's tweeked into b...

We had booked a flight from Christchurch to Auckland to save a couple of days instead of sitting on the coach back. Even though we have had a great time on our stray tour and met some lovely people we just needed to not be sat on a bus anymore. After being dropped off we said our goodbyes, we still had to wait a while to check into our motel for the night so we grabbed a shuttle (big communal taxi) and went to unload our bags there anyway. If you check on Chris...