We had an early get up on Thursday morning to begin our trip over the rest of the country on the Stray bus, which had come highly recommended from the girls who had done it when they were here. It was slightly strange being on a bus full of other travellers and very different to what we had got used to in South America (ie. we were no longer gringos sticking out like a sore thumb!) We stopped off up Mount Eden on the way out of Auckland (where for the first time we appreciated how it is surrounded by volcanoes!) and our driver, a funny guy nicknamed Metro, gave us the big intro. We then set off towards Hahei, our stop for the night, and we spent the travelling time either actually chatting to people from our bus or making judgements from afar! There was a bit of a cringe moment when Metro asked down the bus who wanted a double room that night, or as he put it "who's having sex tonight?" and the 2 German girls in front of us sheepishly put their hands up!

We arrived at our little holiday park (after naturally stopping off at a Warehouse store for what is already fast becoming a daily visit!) and checked into our dorm to find out that of the people from our bus in there with us there was a guy who lives in Middleton and two girls from KPMG Dublin!! Half way round the world and yet it still feels so small!

We did the walk to Cathedral Cove along some really scenic coastline and then briefly visited Hot Water Beach, where you basically dig your own big hole in the sand and let boiling hot water form a nice little pool for you! That night we had a BBQ in the dark as we mingled with people, with our Annex 1 crew the last ones to go to bed for some much needed sleep after a surprisingly tiring day!

We were back on the road by 8am (this is apparently the norm - they didn't tell us about that finer detail when we signed up!) and made our way to Raglan, getting there for lunch time and having a gorgeous sandwich from the local bakery in town. Our digs for tonight was a kind of tree house jungle style lodge which was really nice and had a great view out on to the bay. We wasted an hour by tackling the low ropes course and then tried to walk to the nearby beach, but we went the wrong way and ended up having to walk on the road and a lot further than we thought, only to find that the 'stoney beach' Metro had referred to was in fact just a collection of big rocks with no sand! Still, it was nice chilling in the sun by the grass for a couple of hours and watching the surfers in the bay, and in my wisdom I then decided to go for a run up and down the undulating tracks to try and work off the lingering effects of BA! We had another good BBQ for tea and then a pretty quiet night with just a couple of beers in the lodge, as we decided not to get involved in the strange dancing in a circle in the kitchen. Instead, our wild Friday night consisted of making egg sandwiches for the next day, with our every move scrutinised by a hovering Swedish dude in the kitchen! By the time the guy from the hostel was telling us how he and his girlfriend were left with a broken leg and half his body paralysed from a waterski accident, and survived a few days travelling on busses and planes through "will power and determination alone (?!)", we decided we had heard enough and went to bed - only 2 days in and we already feel like we have been on the bus about a week!