Well we set off from just north of Aukland for the Bay of Islands (becky's recomendation) and we were going to do a cruise up there, it took about 4 hours to get there, once we got there suprise suprise we headed for a liquor store to stock up. The campsite we stayed at was nice as it was on the beach, once we had checked in we headed into Paihia and we looked at the prices and we decided not to do a cruise (which is the only thing to do in the bay of islands) so we went back to the camp had a drink and planned the next couple of days. We stumbled upon a secluded beach on a coastal path by camp which was absolutely stunning and spent a while there collecting shells for Becky to make some jewellery with.

The next day we had a big drive ahead of us but we were ok because we were really well rested after a 12 hour sleep. We set off at 9am and arrived at our campsite at 4pm at a place called "Hot water beach" (its a beach that has hot water seep up through the sand) we went down to the beach to see what it was like and weirdly bumped into a couple we met when picking up the camper at the airport after chatting we had an early night after the big drive.

The next day we were heading to the hot water beach, we got down there really early my idea and the tide was still in (you have to wait for the tide to go out to get the hot water). There was a few groups of people looking for the hot water springs, as they show up in different places each day and I was walking along and all of a sudden my feet started to burn and it was the hot water spring. So once I had found the source of the hot water we stood there and waited for the tide to go out, as we were waiting this oldish new zealand couple came up to me and saw that I had found the source and they said "typical that it's a British person that found it" and they asked if they could take a picture of me with hot spring and my shovel so of course I said yes lol.

Soon the tide went out and I did the manly thing and dug a hole for us and the water was really hot. We stayed there for an hour or so and let a German family have our hole and drove to Cathedral cove, which once you've parked you have to walk for 30mins to get there but once there it was well worth it. Unfortunately there was some workers felling some rocks so we were not allowed to walk through the big arch in the rock to the other side but we stayed there for a couple of hours and took some pictures and did some swimming and sunbathing (first time this trip).

After a nice relaxing day at the beach we went back to the campervan (which we have named Apple after Becky's slow and steady horse in Utah) and again planned what we were going to do the next day.