Almost got a lie in this morning, Ellie almost tugged me out of bed by pulling on my blanket (haha, only joking) only because she was too scared to poke me to wake me up from my cocoon. I swear I’m not that bad! I just sleep deeply and it takes me a while to find my voice so it’s easier to grunt for a little while. That’s normal isn’t it?

I had to get up at 8.30 latest because we needed to make our packed lunch for the island trip today.

We got ready to head over to the ferry port in Paihia for 9.45am, thankfully it’s not raining today even though it was still very windy.

Ellie’s gone way too cold turkey on the whole biscuits, cake and chocolate business. She’s gotten forgetful. She left her ferry ticket in her other purse in the hostel... luckily she was able to reprint a new one as they had her full name. (I held the return ticket for her lol).

The ferry was pretty fast, although it was only a people ferry no other vehicles allowed on it. The water was so clear and turquoise in colour, we tried our hardest to spot dolphins but they weren’t out to play today. It only took around an hour for us to get to Urupukapuka island. There aren’t any roads on the island just a little restaurant as a hut and one or two other buildings. Certainly no roads anywhere just mountains and sheep! Lots of really fluffy ones with fur all down their legs and around their face making them look like they had a really small forehead.
They were still bloody dumb though, somehow two got across the other side of a fence separating their part of land to the other where we could walk down to the sea (so I’m not sure they were supposed to be in that area). Us being us.... you know being welsh and sheep lovers, duuuh!
I held the door open whilst Ellie herd the lambs into the other field. One successful the other not so successful and just ran back and forth like a loonatic for a while which eventually got the attend of the rest of the sheep who then started to run at me thinking I had kept the fence open for them to run into. Now I’m not afraid of sheep but when there are around 100 of the b*****s running at you with those creepy eyes it does indeed freak you out a little! So we gave up and carried on across the field, through the sheep poo and down the hill to the beach. Absolutely stunning - again! That water, it doesn’t get old seeing how blue it is, makes the scenery that much more different to anywhere else we’ve been. No time like the present to crack open the ham and avocado pita breads with the obligatory bottle of Kiwi wine to celebrate the... umm... scenery. Or just because we are here and why the hell not! (No, only joking we didn’t have a flask for a cup of tea so we had to settle with the wine...)

We walked over the hill down to the other beach afterwards to get picked up on the last ferry back to the mainland and low and behold we only went and fell into a farmers market selling all sorts of goodies. The most important being cheese and wine!
We guessed it was rude to try free tasters and not get some cheese and wine for round two on the beach in Paiha? (Free samples in any other established shop is absolutely fine. I mean that’s the only reason you go in posh expensive places for isn’t it? But you have to support the local farmers and suppliers...) haha that’s our take on it anyways, it’s how we justify ourselves.

Ellie bought the cheese and I bought the wine (shes come to the conclusion that I look older than her and she will be the one to get ID’d. I’m not sure that I take it as a compliment? However my argument is, only one is is sprouting grey hairs right now and we all know that is! Haha)

The hostel was super duper quiet today so we grabbed a shower before anyone got back and hogged the showers and chilled out to watch a movie before we made some chilli for dinner today and tomorrow.