Jealously watching wake boarders zipping along the water with a cold Diet Coke in my hand was blissful as the sun was on the rise to my right and making the water sing! Already the Wharf has come to life with eager beavers being herded onto ferries for exciting day excursions.

As for ourselves, we were keenly awaiting our ferry to Urupukapuka, a mouthful to say but apparently a fantastic spot for snorkelling and bronzing. For a $70 fee we will be there for six hours! With books and sun cream packed we clambered aboard.

Our eye wateringly yellow ferry skimmed past a vast array of islands, all of which had small buildings on them like hundreds and thousands on an ice cream. The water was like glass, you could see right to the bottom even when the water was two meters deep!

We landed in Otehei Bay which was a delicate spot with a long, rickety pontoon jutting out from the white sand. The snorkelling there was pretty poor despite the clear water and I only saw one or two fish of notable size. Chelsea had a frolic around with her newly purchased snorkel but got out after her usual photo explosion.

Reading on the sand (another Jack Reacher) and diving off the pontoon was all very relaxing and toasty. The tide went out miraculously far for a small bay, eventually we were boarding our ferry back to the mainland.

Back in our campsite we set about a New Year's Eve meal! After much painful deliberation we settled on a Chinese takeaway from by the wharf with the plan of catching a bus back over later for a firework display.

The Chinese was without a doubt the worst meal of our travels and the worst takeaway of my life. Chelsea made egg fried rice (attempting to be economical) that was the same shade as the pan when finally coaxed out onto the plate - essentially it was a rice omelette. She also opted for 'chicken, with cashew nut'. What that girl is thinking of sometimes I just don't know. Her chicken looked anaemic and had about a billion cashew nuts poked around it in a sort of clear, viscous soup - it looked absolutely hideous! Poking down a slice of egg fried rice to be polite I quickly set my cutlery down and just laughed at the disastrous meal.

Following that, we popped some champagne and drank it out of our mugs, proper camper style. Then we headed over to Paihia Wharf for the fireworks display. The fireworks were dire, to the point of more hysterical laughing from us both. The entire display lasted a rotund three minutes and looked like sparklers being thrown into the air. Perhaps our displays are just vastly better or I'm getting incredibly miserable in my old age, both are very plausible. The hoards of people on the wharf seemed to be content at least.

Due to the monumental amount of people in Paihia a taxi was basically off the cards. We valiantly tried to hitchhike the hour long walk back but apparently we look like serial killers as every drive determinedly failed to make eye contact with us. Sighing in resignation we started the walk back in the pitch black which went surprisingly quickly and we had a good chin wag and laugh through out the walk.

I hope I don't have too bad of a headache tomorrow.