Paihia (12th April - 14th April)

We didn't have long in Paihia so I made the most of it and purchased some more stuff! We spent a few nights in drinking a few beers and I mean a few and playing monopoly, that's right there is just no stopping us! We booked a trip to look around the Islands (this area is the Bay of Islands and is just gorgeous). The weather kept up ok although it was very windy indeed and I was wearing the most unpractical clothes in the world (well not quite, it was no boob tube and 6inch stilettos!). We saw each island and learnt the history of each, most of them looked like paradise with their blue/green waters, green island with white sandy beaches and there are a few with very nice mansions on them, these people are loaded, one bloke had a tunnel dug through the rocks to take him from one house to other so he didn't have to walk over. Part of the trip also included dropping off paper/post/food and other things they couldn't get hole of to the people of the islands, they would come out to take what they had ordered from the boat and we all snapped them and scrambled over one another to get a glimpse of them like they had four arms and two heads, still I don't know how they lived there. We did stop at one island for lunch and had chance to go exploring but if we had walked to the top we would have been blown away and never found again. They also took us so far out to the hole in the rock, but it was really windy there so we could only go part of the way through. All in all it was a great day even if w missed out on the submarine where you could have seen string rays and other fishy creatures.The following day we went to the Waitangi Treaty grounds, there were some great views of the Bay of Islands and it was really interesting to find out the history of how the Europeans came here and how England and New Zealand became so close. The next day it was time to move on to Auckland in search of work.