5.15am wake up call this morning, we did not want to get out of these super beds. As soon as you pull back that big fluffy duvet the cold hits you, exactly like being at home winter time.
Ash was going to work at 6am so he dropped us off in the city on the way which was handy!
We were a little early for the bus pick up so we went to McDonald’s for a warmth and a cup of coffee! I was bloody freezing, more so than Ellie. I haven’t climatized to this climate yet!

We waited outside the Oakley store on Queen street from 7am. Super excited now seeing all the other backpackers waiting aswell, it’s getting real! (I still can’t believe we are in New Zealand)

The bus arrived, a smaller one; probably a 25 seater. With a trailer on the back for our rucksacks haha! The kiwi driver checked our name in, bag in the trailer and jump into the bus.

They literally sort everything for you! He was chatting away on his microphone telling us about the places we were passing and then passed around clipboards for any activities we wanted to do over the coming days, then one for the buses we were getting back to Auckland and then Hot water beach, another clipboard for the bus trip to Cape Reigna and if we needed hostels booked or if we didn’t we wrote the ones we had booked already. (So with this pass in every stop over location you have 1 night stay reserved for you in a hostel that the company work with, still around the same price and then certain locations you get more than one night reserved for you).
We were stopping in Paiha for four nights so if they weren’t able to accommodate us for for nights we needed to move and couldn’t be bothered with that. Plus we found a good deal and a really nice place on booking dot com opposite there’s anyway.

We stopped for a pee break and to see a waterfall in the drivers home town, coincidentally. It started raining probably around 8am on our way up through to supposedly “the north with no winter”. Well call me crazy but holy crap bags was I cold and was this rain like winter!!
The winds and the rain was awful the entire way up! The scenery still beautiful though amongst all the hills and farm land. Lots of sheep and lamas (which was strange, maybe because we aren’t used to seeing so many of them in fields? Haha. Just the odd one or two that want to spit at you in green meadow community farm).

We got to Paiha (Sally told me what to remember when trying to say it, “by-here” ... “Pie-here” - Paiha) at around 12pm, it’s a very small town the main gateway to the bay of 145 islands and the former Capital city/island of the country (Russel Island).
I can see how pretty it could be with the road going across the sea front but at the moment we just see fog, rain, choppy sea and very strong winds. Making it look more similar to Weston super mare than the pristine bay of islands...

We stopped at the ferry port so that we could all go and pay our trips, we decided to do the ferry boat out to Oreya bay (I think that’s what it’s called, I’m not very good with these Mauri names). Booked for Thursday hoping the weather forecast isn’t lowing to us and it’s going to perk up a little!

We checked in to the hostel, it’s actually really lovey and nearly refurbished by the looks of things! Rooms are super spacious and everything is clean, lovey big kitchen and sitting area with tele and dvds and jigsaw puzzles (Ellie isn’t too keen on doing one with me... yet! Muahaha).

We got changed into something warmer, well I did because I was Baltic! Then we headed to the nearest countdown store to get some groceries because we won’t be able to eat out so food for making lunch and breakfast. It was pissing it down!! Ellie managed to find a coat in a little boutique store, a warm waterproof one for a bargain price! Then food shopping, it was surprisingly cheaper than what we thought it was going to be. (Not as cheap as Aldi but still, cheaper than expected.) with lots of deals everywhere in there.

We had paper bags to carry the groceries, only this time we had the rain and wind battering us from the front so trying to hold your hood and a paper bag getting wet isn’t so easy. We very nearly almost had a Home Alone disaster with the shopping bags! We just had to hug them, we just got back but the bags were already absolutely spoiled and broken, haha! We have separated boxes and you just have to put your names on the boxes so you know who’s who’s food which is handy! The hostels here seem to be very different to the ones in Asia!

A cup of tea to warm the bones, a very hot shower to warm us even more and a chilled afternoon watching Netflix and doing some research because there is no way with this wind and rain can we go for a walk or ride the hire bikes anywhere! (We weren’t complaining though, we didn’t have much sleep last night because the match didn’t finish until 11.30pm).

We were bed bound all day under fluffy blankets and duvets because the weather was so bad, lots of Netflix and very sleepy chill time! We did manage to move around 7pm for some soup and toasted pita breads.