After leaving Wellington I made my way back up the North Island.

My first stop was in Taupo where I spent the afternoon in the doctors after being bitten by a spider! This whole time I had been told there were no dangerous spiders in New Zealand, but it turns out one of Australia's dangerous ones has made its way over the seas to New Zealand, and decided to bite me! Lovely mark on my leg, a nice war wound!!!! A course of antibiotics later it is healing, but too slowly for my liking but it's getting there.

My next stop on the bus was then back to Rotorua. I really like Rotorua, you get used to the rotten egg smell quite quickly, and Rotorua has a really nice atmosphere and feel to it. I spent a couple of days here and on one of the days I headed out to the volcanic and geothermal parks to check what effects the volcanoes have had on the region. I had a brilliant day, was so pretty and saw some awesome sights. Definitely one of the best things I have seen in New Zealand, can completely understand why it is the most photographed place in New Zealand.

After Rotorua I headed back in Auckland. Here I sorted out onward travel plans and caught up with people before making my way up to the very north of New Zealand and to the Bay of Islands. It's nice up here, nice beaches and coastline. I did a day trip right up to the very top and Cape Reinga, which is where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. You can even see a change in colour in the water where the two oceans meet. Also in the Bay of Islands I did a boat trip out to the see the "Hole in the Rock' which the boats can sail through. Unfortunately, sea sickness kicked in at this point and by the time I emerged back onto the deck we had pretty much passed the rock, so not a successful trip overall. We did see a large pod of large bottle nose dolphins though which made up for it.

The rest of my time in the Bay of Islands was just chilling out and enjoying the sunshine. I am now back in Auckland for a few more days and then heading off to Fiji on Thursday for 3.5 weeks on the Fijian beaches, hard life :-)

xxx