After our first day in the Bay of Islands the weather turned and our tent was tested to the full by the driving wind and rain and came out with flying colours I am glad to say! However this did mean that our trip on the a catamaran around the islands and to see dolphins was not going to be on. We did however wait until the following day and take the trip in ok-ish weather. We had an excellent day and saw dolphins which was great as well as jumping off the boat for a swim and then realising that our limbs were about to fall off because it was so cold!!!

Next stop was Trounson Kauri Park to see the huge Kauri trees that are native to New Zealand. They are amazing trees and the oldest, discovered tree, is thought to be 2,000 years old... it was seeded at around the time that Christ was born (sorry to state the obvious but this made the time seem a very long time ago to me!). We saw a number of Kauri trees that were both very fat and very tall as well as being very straight... you can see why they were so heavily farmed in the past.