A Big Hello from New Zealand!! We arrived into Auckland on Thursday evening and it felt just like home (a little bit cold and wet!). Next day we went up the Sky Tower - which is the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere apparently! Also did a little bit of shopping... the Pound is doing REALLY well against the New Zealand Dollar! So we feel justified! On Saturday we headed up north to the Bay of Islands - where we went on a dolphin discovery cruise. We did find a group and tried to go swimming with them, but they weren't very friendly, and kept on swimming off (we figure it was because of our singing!). Apparently to attract their attention you have to splash about and sing - so there was alot of the first bit, but because the water was so cold (14 degrees) we ended up humming in shivers through our snorkels! We did find another pod later on, which were much more lively - but we found out that the reason why they were jumping about and doing somersaults was because they had just got lucky! Our guide told us that dolphins spend 60% of their time bonking!!! And there were lots of dolphins leaping about so they must have been having a right old party - after we found that out, we weren't so keen on going back in the water! Next day we headed to the tip of the Bay of Islands - Cape Rienga. This is where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet - its quite weird; you can literally see the crease where the two meet. We then went along 90 mile beach and went sand boarding! Unfortunately this wasnt as fun as it should have been because after you slid down you had to climb back up this enormous dune! We had lovely fish and chips on the way back to our hostel - which reminded us of home! On Monday we went over to Russell - which was the first capital of NZ. We did a little bit of rock pool jumping and climbing - and then nearly got cut off when the tide came back in! Whoops! Lucky we are both so athletic and managed to leap our way to safety! We went back to Auckland that evening - and that is it for now! Promise to post some pictures tomorrow! Disclaimer: we would like to warn viewers that the following photographs may not be suitable for public consumption. We apologise but no makeup was used in the making of this production (the photos!).