Well we've travelled nearly 1000km in 3 days. We now have our car, Percy the Nissan Pulsar (a little larger than what we were expecting, but at least there's plenty of room for the rucksacks). Its also not as difficult to drive as what we had imagined.

Before leaving Auckland, we visited Kelly Taultons Aquarium, which had a 2m stingray called phoebe and lots of other fish and sharks from surronding waters. They also had a penguin enclosure which we went round in a snow cart. We walked there as the hostel receptionist said it was a 30min walk. 2 hours later, we arrived. She obviously hasn't walked there before!! We then went to Sky Tower for views of the city from the skys. It is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. We also had a wander round the harbour which would probably be quite nice of a night time due to all the restaurant and bars (a little out of our price league though). We are now also preparing our own food because its cheaper to do so here than what it was in America.

We set off from Auckland Tuesday morning to drive to the Bay of Islands in the north. This was a 4 hour drive and we stayed in a place called Paihia. This was a very quiet and peaceful seaside town. The hostel was very modern and the facilities were brilliant. We wish we could have stayed longer but we're on a strict time schedule. The reason we went up there was to see the dolphins, so we booked ourselves up for the following morning. They guaranteed we would see them but couldn't guarantee that we could swim with them. This was because the law prohibits it if there are young with them or they are feeding. We had our fingers crossed but didn't want to get our hopes up. So Wednesday morning we were up early to catch our boat at 8am. It didn't take too long until we found a pod of approximately 60 bottlenose dolphins (the size of the pod is quite rare apparently). We spent about 30 minutes watching the dolphins play and swim under the boat. They were little entertainers doing jumps and somersaults. We could not believe the size of them. As there were young with them and because of the size of the pod, we were not allowed to swim with them. However we carried on searching for a pod we could swim with and struck gold when we found a pod of approximately 12 bottlenose dolphins with no young.

We were told to quickly get changed and were given a briefing on how to act around the dolphins. It was then go go go to jump into the water and we felt like we were on an army obstacle course as the skippers were yelling swim swim swim faster faster faster!! They said to attract the dolphins attention, you have to make them curious and so we had to act like dolphins and make high pitch noises through our snorkels. We also had to splash as they are as curious about us as we are about them. You could hear them before you could see them with that high pitch noise they make. Then all of a sudden they would swim underneath us and twirl round us having a look. It was one of the most amazing experiences we've ever had. Swimming with these huge mammals (approx 3 metres) in their own habitat was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we spent as long in the water as we could.  It was fantastic seeing them a metre away from us and totally different from seeing them from the boat.  We could not believe how tiring it was but so worth it.  Unfortunately, we could not get any photos of us swimming with them.

We arrived back at the harbour at 12pm and had to get back on the road.  We then started our journey to Rotorua.  After 6 hours of driving, we had had enough and decided to spend the night in Hamilton (about an hours drive away) as we were exhausted.  We literally arrived there at 8pm, cooked dinner and were in bed by 9pm.  We were up early this morning though and rareing to go.  We drove down to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves.  This 1 hour tour took us through the caves where the limestone is millions of years old and then to see the glow worms which looked like stars.

After we finished at the caves, we headed for Rotorua which has a reputation of having a smell.  It definately smells like egg!! It took us 3 hours to drive here and we have now had a wander round and found a 2 dollar shop.  We've replaced our sunglasses and alarm clock as these items have already broke.  We've now settled down for the night and will head off again tomorrow.