Bridgewater Bay Apartments Paihia

... front or not.

We were on the road for 9.30am and successfully navigated out of a sign-free city centre onto the harbour bridge road - Highway 1 North. It starts out as a 8-lane motorway, but gradually as the Auckland suburbs fall behind the lanes peel off one by one and were down to two-lane blacktop. Sadly the beautiful weather falls behind too and we go into a band of grey clouds and the odd spot of rain. This road is absolutely crying out for a Porsche - it twists and turns ...

... of australia. There was lots of their carvings around which are really good and I may buy a couple before I leave. We bought our tickets for soemthing called Magicbus back in Australia. Basically this is sort of like a tour bus but it's hop-on hop-off so we can just wander around NZ at our own pace. Our first trip was up to the Bay of Islands in the North of the north Island. This large bay area has about 146 or so islands of various sizes, most of which are ...

... come to that. It's just the bus driver who is a little miserable I have to say... I'm tempted to extract her "miserableness" from her, find out what's going on there... but I resist... she's not asked for it... and I am here on holiday... ;o) So here we go... we get tree hugging again in a Kauri tree forest - I do love trees, they're just so big and impressive with everything they have been through and they have a way to stay strong and yet adapt so ...

... about exactly what the deal was the maori signed up to anyway i've got two activites planned for today first the Mack attack fast boat to the hole in the rocks and then tonight a maori hangi and cultural evening I've done the boat trip now - at first i thought it would just be an hour and half of wind in your face and being bounced about on the water while looking at the scenery. BUT when we got the ...

... our horror during the course of the evening four massive Marlins where brought in to harbour (rather than released on a tagging scheme). The fish ranged in weights from 76 to 210kg's! It is the start of the off season and we really did worry that this fishing is not sustainable. The next morning we were greeted by the sight of two massive liners ready to flood the town with their elderly guests. Luckily we managed to escape them ...

After the last disastrous boat ride snorkeling, I was worried about the tour we had booked the next day thru the bay of islands from the town of Paihia. But everyone reassured me that this boat ride is much smoother and I should not have any problems. I tried to put it out of my mind, but still scrambled around in order to find motion sickness pills! I did this boat trip with Jackie and Jay. We were told that dolphins are often ...

... I ambled up the coast in the sunshine, I walked back down the coast in the rain - Crazy Weather! Some interesting women: As the YHA has a really small common room, me and the 3 ladies I'm sharing a dorm with were all sitting in the room, we started chatting, as you do. Between us we were quite a spectrum of travelers; A 72 year old doctor (anesthetist) from the UK but living for most of ...

... for LA yesterday. The night turned into something of a riddle as a Demon energy drink indutry promotion night (featuring some divine promo girls) offered a 1,000 dollar free alcohol giveaway. Naturally, as any self respecting backpacker should, I was there ten minutes before kick-off just to ensure maximum value was obtained. The bar was surprisingly empty by the appointed hour but I got chatting to an Irish lad called Tommy and by 8pm when the free tab finally ended we were best ...

... coffee stop we made our way on to see some of the largest Kauri trees in the world. We stopped off again before we reached the forest as we drove past an excellent look out point up which looked out over some massive sand dunes. The look out point was a small peninsular and the water surrounding it was a small inlet of the sea which reached over to the bottom of the sandunes. After numerous photos, (again), we continued towards the forest to see the largest Kauri tree off all, known as ...

... so cute. They have such sweet little faces, like little teddy bears. It had a long tail and Dean thinks that was what he saw running off with our pan bag that night when we were in the Blue Mountains. We have had a lovely time here, it is a beautiful place with fantastic views around every corner. The weather was hot and sunny most of the time but we had a few rain showers. Thankfully, our little back awning over our bed stood up to the rain and proved it's waterproof - we stayed dry.