Tui Bliss Paihia

... lovely, considering I picked it semi-blind off the internet. It doesn't have a sea view, being slightly above and behind the town, but it makes up for it in comfort. The widely-spaced chalet-style blocks have rooms that are enormous - easily double the size of the one in Hong Kong and that's without including the private garden patio with table and chairs.

We don't stay there long though, but drive down into the village to confirm our trip to Cape Reinga tomorrow. I had tried to ...

... and was introduced to a talking bird, that sounded so much like a man, and i saw a Kiwi Bird. That was very lucky to be able to see that Kiwi Bird, cos apartly its nearly impossible to see them in the wild and your never any guarentee to see one if you go to a kiwi house.

... house. Before ent**ing 3 of our male contingent are challanged by Maori descendants in a Haka. 5 almost naked Maori are dancing and prancing and pulling the funny faces and sticking the tongues out and waving spears in the air and all that jazz - much more than you see at the All Blacks games. The 3 nominees on our side have to stand straight faced and show no fear - thankfully I managed not to be volunte**ed - for I just can't help ...

... hoped over a gate, as we were leaving through the gift shop we noticed that it should of been $20! yikes, scammed agained without realising! Walked back and found an Ice Cream parlour where we swear Brad Pitt's spitting image works!! (we even took a photo!) was cwazeeeee, was identical! We all bought a large one! ha! Again when we got back more DVD's came out! Definatly watched our fair share of films out here in New Zealand!! Superbad was on ...

... the beach back to the road for our motel - soooo nice!! And that was Paihia! oh, except the exciting beastie incident which was hilarious - mainly cause it happened to Roar and not me! LOL! Told you I was evil! We were lying in bed watchin TV (the sun had set by this point) and Roar noticed a 'thing' bouncing in the kitchen and runs over to see what it is - with fear in his eyes! LOL! Turns out to be a very bouncy crickety thing and he ...

As my parents were here visiting, we decided to take a day off and have a long weekend in the Bay of Islands. I had to be in Auckland on the Monday anyway as I'd bought a ticket to go and see Kylie, with my friend Jen. My parents were already up in Auckland as they'd been touring the North Island. We flew up on the Saturday morning at 8am. I was very hungover as on the Friday night, we went to the pub from work ...

... Will Actually Only Be Funny To About Four People: Because I was already at the top of the hill, it was madness and folly to walk back down to walk around to the tarmac road to the lighthouse, so I just walked down the grass at the side. Doing this in flip flops might have been an error, because at one particularly steep bit, I put a foot wrong, slid down a couple of feet and sat down very hard. I said "Ow" to no-one in ...

... the summer time.. They way back in the evening over the Harbour Bridge into Auckland is stunning aswell. Colors all over the place and the skytower rising high above the city. Maybe the best skyline of a city by night I've seen so far. Back in Auckland and a time to do an introductionary with Stray along the city of Auckland. Starting with a trip to the harbour, not too interesting now the rain is pooring out. After heading to the the skytower which is the tallest alone standing ...

... just yummier! Then we just sat back with a beer and enjoyed the sun whilst a couple of guys braved the freezing waters and went snorkelling. In the end I hadn't missed much as it was really murky they said. We then finished off the day by sailed about the island. I got my go at steering and before I knew it we were pulling down the sails and docking. A great day sailing, I found it really relaxing and calming being out on the water, very peaceful ...

Leaving Auckland for the Bay of Islands stopped at Uretiti Beach for a lunch break and to catch some more rays of sunshine. Stayed at an awesome camp which had a zip line so after dinner a bunch of us zip-lined into the night! The next day took a sailing trip out to Wae Wae Torea Bay. Took about 2 hours of sailing to get there and although it was sunny out it was very windy but luckily once we got into the way the winds had died down a bit ...