And so my Stray Bus journey begins... 12 independent travelers head off for an adventure around the North Island with 'Magpie' our driver.

First stop, Eden Hil lookout for a view of Auckland before heading South to the Coromandel Peninsula. We stayed the night at a campsite next to the sea and visited 'Hot Water Beach'. It has a pocket of magma 175m below the beach which heats up the water and sends it back up through the sand as steam. We dug holes in the sand and sat in our very own spa pool! In the evening we had a BBQ.

Only one girl 'hopped off' here, while the rest of us continued our journey to the West coast, to Raglan, surfing mecca of New Zealand for it's world famous left-hand breaks.. We stayed in a cool surfing lodge, went for a walk through the bush and had fish and chips by the sea. We walked to a large waterfall, which had considerably better safety features than the last one I visited in Chile!