Finally we return to the hostel and Vinnie the hostel manager, to check into our room that we had very sensibly booked the day before. But... Vinnie had made a mistake and our booking was nowhere to be found - now, with the hostel being full up there were many apologies and talks of mattresses being added into rooms before he came to the conclusion that he would turf some boys bags off a double bed, move some furniture and have us steal the double bed! I was not all that eager to explain this to the two Israeli boys we were sharing with but since they took a shine to Katy all was good in the end. Whilst this whole debacle was going on we also asked Vinnie for directions to the bus stop for the next morning when we were to be meeting up with the Kiwi Bus, he was very helpful and gave us the directions telling us it was just 2 minutes away.

Next morning however when we had trekked for an age with the backpacks and were apparently no close to the Kiwi bus and were now late, Vinnie was appearing far less helpful and was having much aggression directed at him, especially from Katy whom you do not want to mess with at 7o'clock in the morning!!! After admitting defeat and accepting the bus was long gone we went back to the hostel (me having to practically restrain Katy from ripping Vinnie's throat out) and phoned up to book again for the next day. Vinnie obviously felt guilty because he did at this point offer to make us a cup of coffee!

Next day we finally made it onto our bus (taxis are a marvelous thing) and immediately felt about 100 years old surrounded by all these 18 year olds. It was a nice bus load of people though and our driver Josh was also lovely and it was his first trip in the big green bus. Day one on the bus drove us to Mercury bay where, for some reason completely unbeknown to me we decided to go sea kayaking - yes we got into a very small kayak and went out into the SEA!!! The gorgeous mark who was our guide warned us before we got in that the little plastic kayaks were divorce makers and boy was he right! Me and Katy practically killed each other mainly due to the fact that I had been nominated to steer the thing and was completely incapable of doing so! Eventually after the longest hour and a half of my life we rocked up onto Cathedral cove, a nice little beach where Mark made us hot drinks while we risked life and limb running through a little cave that was being battered by the waves to get to the beach where the rest of the bus was gathered. We just about remained dry on the way there but following Mike on the way back resulted in us getting thrown against the cave wall and returning to mark looking like drowned rats. All too soon it was time to get back into the Kayaks and embark on round two of the adventure. By this time the waves were pretty sizeable and all 7 of us in the group got incredibly wet not least Sue and Mike who almost got washed away! By some miracle we all returned ashore after hearing a whole host of Marks Maori stories which I'm sure he was telling us in an effort to distract us from the rising swell and our imminent death!!! Rather more wet than when we had set out we rocked up at the hostel to a spaghetti tea and more than a few ciders before heading to bed for our early start the next day.