We got up at 7am ready to check out of the hostel and pick up the Kiwi Experience bus at 8.30am. Gina and I are travelling round New Zealand on the Kiwi Experience for a month covering the north and south island. We are doing the sleep dog pass and can hop on and off throughout New Zealand and stay for as long as we want in each place. The Kiwi Experience also organises activities along the way and in each place we stay so we can see the best of New Zealand. There are around 59 people on the bus today and our driver is called Buzz. He was a big fellow and typical looking Kiwi. He had the funniest laugh and loved cracking jokes. Gina was not happy this morning as she had her IPod and SD card stolen in our dorm room at Base. She had left it on her bed. It's a horrible thing to happen as it had all her photos of America on it and previous photos from before she started travelling. She left her details at reception incase it is found but to be realistic it's probably long gone. Everyone was really friendly in our dorm room but it goes to show that you can't trust anyone. We loaded our bags onto the bus and headed to the Kiwi Experience office to get our tickets processed as we need this to show the driver each time we hop on a bus. Loads of people were on the bus today from the Base hostel including Alex, Becky and her friend Nicola that arrived yesterday and Will and Scott who also arrived in our dorm room yesterday. We headed out of Auckland and drove to a historic gold mining settlement of Thames for lunch. After an hour we headed to Hot Water Beach which has a natural hot water spa provided it is low tide. After a short stop here we walked along the coast of Cathedral Cove. Then we got taken to our hostel - Turtle Cove in Mercury Bay (Whitianga). The Kiwi Experience always book your first nights accommodation. The hostel offered us a meal in the evening for $7.00. Gina and I are in a dorm room with Jo, Emma, Nicole and Nikola. Great first day on the Kiwi Experience so far.