We were up nice and early to catch the kiwi bus up to the very top of the north island to a place called the bay of islands where we were staying for the next 3 nights at a little town called Paihia. We had a brand new bus driver and coach full of people which was different coz they were all stiffs and that includes the bus driver, so the next 3 days were a nice bit of time just the 2 of us. We arrived at noon and were impressed with the weather..after all it is called the winterless north up there, and we had the beach on our doorstep which was nice. That day we didnt get up to much just went for a walk and booked a boat trip for the next day to go out to the cape brett peninsula and explore some of the 144 islands that are there in the bay.

The next morning we were up early again for the boat ride and although it was cloudy we got dressed in our summer gear hoping the weather would clear up. We got on the boat and headed over to a little town called Russell which used to be the first capital of nz in the 1800's. We then headed out to some other islands for the next few hours on our way we spotted blue penguins (the smallest breed in the world) and we also came across a pod of 50+ bottle nosed doplhins so we hung out with them for half hour or so. they were playing under the bow of the boat and catching flying fish. we also saw a mother and its baby which was only a week old and so tiny! The weather started to clear up which wasnt good as we had a very red andrwe by the end of the day but before the boat trip was over we went to the hole in the rock, piercey island (see pics) and drove through it and then stopped off at a island for lunch before heading back to Paihia at about 4.30, it was a good day out.

The next day the storm that had been forecast had hit and the weather was horrible so we stayed in watching dvds but once again it cleared up again and we went out for a walk on the beach and spent a good few hours crabbing. I had never done this before like every other child so Andrew showed me how it was done, we didnt have any buckets or nets though so we improvised with sticks to get the crabs out but i think we killed more than we caught. We went out that night and had a few beers as it was our last proper night out in New Zealand. The next day was pretty boring, we hung around waiting for our bus all morning then headed back to Auckland where we would spend our last night with some free pizza and bumped into a few familiar faces from our original bus journey which was nice. Early night is needed tonight ready for Fiji tomorrow.

There will probably be no internet out there so it might be a while for the next installment. Wil try and get it done before christmas though. Hope your all well. Miss you all A & C xxxx