Ok I don't want to alarm any of you, but I have actually found a warm place in new zealand! With sun and everything! Welcome from the bay of islands baby!
After a nice rainy early start escaping aukland for the second time, we arrived in pahia early afternoon to find a georgous little town with a lovely harbour full of sun and warmth and just general prettiness :) incase you didn't realise, I kinda like it here :). Our first stop after a brief tour of the town was to the activity centre where we could book our various trips for the next couple of days. My choice of course being swimming with dolphins, my last chance to do it, so I was swiftly booked onto the dolphin cruise - not the trip I wanted since that didn't run in the winter, but the lady at the desk in all her wonderful wisdom clearly reassured me that it was the exact same trip except for the size of the boat - seems fair enough...
The hostel was nice enough, I was rooming with some rather interesting Irish girls who were intent on being as loud as possible and even more vulgar than me jokes wise! Like seriously, I thought my sence of humour was dirty -I got nothing on them! I spent the remainder of the day exploring the main strip in town and enjoying the lack of warm clothes needed to survive for more than 5 minutes outside! It was so damn sunny I had forgotton how much I had missed the warm! Needless to say I was definitly in a good mood :) which was useful since that evening we were called upon to attend a sailor party at the hostel bar, only no one had sailor outfits and the bar's box of fancy dress consisted of some neon green tutu's and a giant sombraro. So mexican leprocauns it is then! I think it worked well personally :p
Sunday morning basically consisted of me brimming with excitement about seeing dolphins in the afternoon, and Sunday afternoon revolved around me being immensly pissed off becuase I didn't get to see any dolphins. Let me explain... You remember that trip that I booked where the woman insisted it was the exact same trip but just with a different boat? Yeah - it wasn't. In fact it was a cruise to see a lot of big rocks and then one in particular which had a massive hole in it, then, in the last 15 minutes they attempted to find some dolphins for s***s and giggles on the way back, given we did see 2, just as they swam away before we could take pictures! It was utterly ridiculous though, I mean there was no intention of really finding them let along swimming with them - they didn't even have any wet suits on board! I was tres tres pissed off, I had spent nearly a weeks accommodation on a trip that was of about the same quality as the bloody wellington lotr tour! Needless to say I went into the office afterwards and complained. Now I wouldn't usually do that but I really didn't think it was good enough that they had sold the wrong trip to me and lied about what the trip actually contained - so I got the manager out and I explained in my very polite, calm and collected manner (:p) that I wanted my money back. Now. And I walked out of there with 3/4 of it back which I was pretty damn happy with... Except that I still didn't see any dolphins :( but cest la vie right! It was sunny, there was a bar with cheap drinks 7 steps away from my room, and honestly I still loved this place :)
Monday was my last day in pahia and it was pretty quiet to be honest. The Irish girls were at cape ranga for the day and me and hamish (one of the guys I met there) were leaving at two so we just chilled watching movies for most of the morning. Turns out me and hamish were the only ones going back to aukland that day so we had the entire bus to ourselves! Very strange! So we made it back to yucky aukland by the evening and shock it was raining again! And even more of a shock - hamish insisted on carrying my big bag for me all the way into the hostel! Why? I don't know but it was kinda sweet and slightly funny watching him struggle with my 20kg bag :p anyway I repaid him by helping him cook dinner since he appeared to be completly useless with kitchen equipment ad I even donated the rest of my food to him
Since I was leaving in the morning - what a good Samaritan I am :p speAking of kitchens, you remember back in oz when the silly bush baby girl poured boiling water over my hand? Well someone did it again! This time it was some Chinese dude who decided it was a good idea to fill a pan with boiling water and then not look where he was walking. I was not impressed. So much so infact that I apparently destroyed him with my eyes to the point where his girlfriend came and apoligised to me whilst he stood shamed in the corner becuase he felt so guilty! Serves him bloody right! Dumbass. One nice thing about that evening was that I bumped into Camilla and Anne and mark from my little family! Alhough mark was so stoned he couldn't even hold a sentance together but the girls were good company as always :) and it turned out we were going to the airport at the same time the next morning so that was even better :)
And that brings us about to today, my last day in new zealand and soon to be the start of my final stop on my journey - wow it's gone quickly! Me and the girls spent the morning thinking of ways to screw the system and get upgraded on our flights, none of which had any chance of working! And soon enough they dissapeared off to their gate and I once again decended into the realms of airport boredom! Still, Fiji here I come baby!
Xxx