We started our third day in Paihia quite early (funnily enough, anna and I had had a fair bit of sleep! - however Mel still hasn't had a full nights sleep...). We had breakfast and headed down to the wharf in time to catch our boat. It was a pretty big boat with 3 floors and two inside areas too. We managed to get seats in the sun at the top thinking we had picked pretty well - except when the boat started to move, we had to rock a pretty windswept look. It actua...

Im thinking this one's going to be an extra long blog tonight... Weve had a brilliant past couple of days! Very much feeling the Paihia love now (however we have to leave tomorrow morning). So yesterday we borrowed the bikes from the hostel and set out on... well we werent 100% sure where we were heading but we set off anyway towards the Treaty Grounds.Anna had an absolutely massive bike - we got "nice penny farthing!"shouted at us on the street at ...

Yesterday we arrived in Paihia after a 4 hour bus journey from Auckland. It was pretty long but after those flights not really that bad. We had nice views and a stop in the middle so overall not hating the coaches! When we arrived it was really easy to find our hostel as we just followed the beach and turned right into Backpackers Street... Its a good hostel! The rooms are nice with 3 bunkbeds and theres a livingroom/kitchen and the bathrooms are nice. We even h...

Just catching up the blog from our last day in Auckland. I think I last wrote when we'd got back from Piha. I logged off quickly so Trudy and Kev (Lisa's parents) could take me and Anna to the botanical gardens they have pretty much on their doorstep. Not to claim I know much about plants - however Anna was very impressed! She seemed to like a lot of the green plants and took a fair few photos lol, I just thought some of the flowers looked pretty and dodged the ...

Im sitting at the computer in Lisas in the sun - Ive really missed sun! Lisa and Sam took us for a drive around yesterday where we went and had an icecream on the beach and saw One Tree Hill. Its literally a massive hill - I think it used to have a tree on it but now theres a pointy big memorial pillar on the top of the hill... It has great views anyhow from the top so it was a nice walk up. We also had some encounters with some not so friendly sheep on the way ...