Well, well, well- that's a very small car we've rented. A Suzuki Wagon R- absolutely tiny, a 850cc engine, wheels the size of dinner plates and not entirely keen on climbing hills. But boy it was cheap- from Rent & Save Auckland, at $19 a day it was about half the price of the next best quote we got.



And it made it to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. This is our first time staying on a campsite (Suzie's first time ever) and it's pretty good. We have our own cabin with two rooms and a kitchen and it's all perfectly functional.



The Paihia area is beautiful, though fairly touristy. It seems that over half the shops in town are trying to sell boat tours. The weird thing is that regardless of how they are branded, they all sell the same tours from two companies, and those two companies do the same routes as each other. We went with Fullers Hole in the Rock cruise, though as it's low season that got combined with a dolphin watching cruise- no bad thing! We were slightly taken aback by the average age of our fellow cruisers- it was basically us and a saga coach tour-and by the sheer number to people filling the seats- this time Suzie told, sorry asked, people to move for us honeymooners- but we went out the front of the boat and it was great. ************e out there, the wind in our hair (okay, holding on for dear life) and a great view of everything, including a huge pod of dolphins that frollicked alongside us then chased the boat. The actual Hole in the Rock is pretty good too and, though we couldn't go all the way through it due to choppy water, we reversed into it a bit.



And that's about it for Bay of Islands apart from a waterfall and Waitangi where the contract was signed between Brits and Maoris to set up NZ. We went and looked at it... but they wanted $20 to get in so we didn't get past the gates, saw a nice monument though.