Today I was up fairly early ready for my jouney south to begin! Whilst waiting for the bus I met the rest of the group who I would be travelling with...those who 8days later are now responsible for my liver failure!! haha only kidding guys it's been a blast!!

So we met our new bus driver-Rich lol and headed up to the top of Mt Eden which is one of 70 dormant volcanoes in this area. It also had amazing views of Auckland city and the harbour. It was really nice but our attention was taken away slightly when we saw a man riding a bike, with a dog in a basket labelled 'Lazy Rider' and wait for it...wearing goggles!! well I couldn't have picked a better blog photo than this, a great memory of us all absolutely wetting ourselves with laughter!! It was so funny and cute haha...and it still makes me laugh nearly 2weeks later as I write this blog!

Anyway onwards out of Auckland and to a place called Thames where we stopped for lunch supplies and then on over the Coromandel Ranges...Kim I'm still upset I didn't see the Guinea Pig!!

Our next stop was Cathedral Cove and a 20minute walk down to a gorgeous beach with crystal clear water! The walk down was interesting, I think topics of conversations included Bangkok Lady Boys, Ping Pong Shows and god knows what else but it was highly amusing! A couple of people swam...I paddled because it was freezing! We lazed about for an hour or so then took the walk back up to the bus.

We headed to our hostel, Turtle Cove, which was in a place called Whitianga. It was late afternoon when we arrived so we all lazed about and then went down for Spag Bol, cooked by the hostel...Brucey!

Then it was a relaxed night with back to back episodes of The Biggest Loser...haha such a hard life! After about 10 episodes we decided to head to bed and be up early ready for some time at Hot Water Beach before heading to Waitomo....only problem was me and Lois were still in absolute fits of giggles over the dog with the goggles, I actually had stomach pains from laughing!! I think we actually laughed forever!! haha