August 18th (Tuesday) - Day 169 - Auckland
Our last bus journey in New Zealand. It's been great but I am glad to not to be on a bus again for a while. We had a lot of stops to cover off today. The first being a little sleepy village. We had a quick walk around and found a path that led through some mangroves. Our next stop was in a place called Opononi; this is really famous for a dolphin that used to play with tourists in the bay back in the 1950's. We were made to watch a short film about it in the information centre about Opo the "Gay dolphin" The documentaries words not mine. The area itself was really impressive. There were sand dunes on the other side of the bay which gave the impression one side was a lush green haven and the other a desert. We then climbed on up into the forest. Some of New Zealand's only native forest. The unique tree is the Kauri and some of these were massive. We went to see the tree that the Maori believe to be the creator and at another stop we saw the 2nd largest tree in New Zealand. Something like 16 metres wide. Our final stop was at a cafe in the middle of nowhere. We arrived into Auckland at about 4pm. We checked into the same hostel as last time as they gave us free food, then went out for a wander. We didn't see much of Auckland last time as it was raining hence it was good to take it in rather than looking for cover. There wasn't a massive amount to do so after a few hours we headed back to our room. We of course went down for our free food and started watching a killer pool comp. It was so rigged as the staff didn't seem to lose a life when they didn't pot. Bored of that we went back to our room again and chilled out for the rest of the night.

August 19th (Wednesday) - Day 170 - Auckland
Our flight to Fiji was at 1pm so we didn't have a lot of time that morning especially as we laid in until about 9. We walked down to the ferry terminal with our bags and caught the bus to the airport. We checked in and went through security. I got stopped and swabbed for explosives. Funnily enough I was clean. We were right behind a little baby on the plane so I install put my head phones in. Sarah was not overly impressed! I watched the silly kid's film they put on...