After our short and pleasant flight from Nadi, we arrived in a rainy and cool Auckland on Thursday, grabbed our bags and caught the shuttle bus to Queen's Road in downtown Auckland, where our BASE hostel was located.

After getting settled in our room, we stuck on our huge load of laundry, accumulated over our week in Fiji, and headed to the Globe Bar downstairs from the hostel, after hearing an announcement about free pizza.

After a couple of Tui beers we finally got some free pizza and joined in with the free Bingo in the bar, not winning any prizes for the bingo, though I did win us a couple of beers for my impression of a monkey (You had to make animal noises to signal you were one number away from Bingo, with the best ones winning prizes).

After a few more beers and numerous trips upstairs to sort out our laundry, it was time to call it a night, as we knew we would have a busy day on Friday.

On Friday morning we got packed up once again, stowed our bags in the hostel and headed out into a still-rainy Auckland. After a quick breakfast in a coffee shop we made our way to the Escape camper van depot to pick up our rolling home for the next month.

After filling out our paperwork and a long deliberation process trying to choose a van, we were finally ready to get rolling in 'Happy Diwali', our pink Festival of Light-themed Toyota Regius camper. I can safely say I never expected to be driving such a vehicle but we were both really pleased with our decision, based on service history and mileage as well as the graphics.

Making our way out of Auckland, we headed North on SH1 towards the Bay of Islands, enjoying the lush green hills and forests in the countryside despite the poor weather. We both agreed that the landscape was very reminiscent of Scotland, just with more ferns.

After a few hours of driving we eventually made it to Whangarei, where we picked up some fish and chips for tea before carrying on, eventually reaching a campsite outside Paihia, on the shore of the Bay of Islands. It was already dark by the time we got there so we chilled out with a beer and checked out the internet before making up our bed and settling down for the night.

The next morning it was still quite grey but not actually raining. We jumped back in the van and made our way into Paihia for some breakfast at a cafe on the pier before carrying on north a short distance to Waitangi, the historical site where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, the founding document of New Zealand as we know it.

We enjoyed walking around the manicured lawns, checking out the huge waka or canoes, the meeting hall, filled with incredible carvings from various Maori tribes and the treaty hall which used to be the British residence in New Zealand.

After looking around the Waitangi grounds for a while we made our way back through Paihia and caught the short ferry from Upua across part of the bay. From the far side of the ferry crossing we drove a few km, to Russell, another small town on the bay, which we were keen to see as it was my brother's favourite place when he visited New Zealand.

Unfortunately the restaurant he recommended to us was closed so we grabbed a quick lunch at a Thai restaurant before boarding a cruise out into the Bay of Islands. The cruise took us around a number of the lush islands where we admired the holiday homes of rich Kiwis, before heading out to the eastern side of the bay to the famous Hole in the Rock. Here, dramatic cliffs plunge into the sea and the rocky lump of Piercy Island, just offshore, is punctured by the hole, big enough to sail through though the conditions weren't ideal when we were there, with choppy seas and a fairly brisk wind.

From the Hole, we made our way back through the bay, seeing some other islands and the volcanic formations of the black rocks, before heading back towards Russell. The secondary purpose of our cruise had been to see dolphins in the bay but much to our dismay we didn't find any on the 3+ hour cruise. Despite this, and the grey weather, the Bay was really nice, though I couldn't help imagining what it would be like on a bright and warm summer day with dolphins jumping all over the place, and feeling it would be even better.

Once back in Russell, we decided to use the rest of our afternoon to make our way south again as we knew we would be returning that way anyway. We drove back down towards Whangarei, though I wish we had made our way west so we could have seen the giant Kauri trees the next day. At least this left something to see when we return to New Zealand, along with the far north which we didn't have time to visit.

We stopped off in Kawakawa to use the facilities at the Hundertwasser Toilets, probably the coolest toilet I have ever been in. Designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the toilets building was made of smoothly rounded concrete covered in a mosaic of colourful tiles with glass bottle windows and colourful rounded pillars outside.

After our toilet stop, we carried on and once in Whangarei, picked up some cheap Chinese food then found our way to a Top 10 Holiday Camp and got ourselves sorted with a spot for the night before relaxing and settling down for another comfortable sleep in Happy Diwali.

On Sunday morning we were finally greeted by some blue sky, albeit with its fair share of grey clouds in the distance. We headed west through lush green farmland, very reminiscent of home, eventually arriving at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe. We spent a few hours at this museum in the small rural town, checking out the exhibits which, as the name suggests, mainly detailed the short but productive history of the Kauri industry in New Zealand, including the felling, transport and milling of these mighty trees as well as the associated 'gum' industry, involving the hunt for the valuable resin from the trees and its subsequent processing.

After some lunch at the cafe at the museum we made our way back towards Auckland through the farmland and forested hills, taking it in turns to drive. We decided to continue through Auckland and found a campsite on the south side of town, so that we could make better progress on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula the following day.

After stocking up on supplies at a local supermarket we settled down to relax for the evening and catch up on blog writing!