Casa Bella Motel Paihia

... sehr sauber. Anscheindend kann man nur besondere Klos gut behandeln...wie auch immer: sehr kunstvoll und schoen!<br><br>Am naechsten Tag - gestaerkt nach einem genauso leckeren Fruehstueck wie am Vortag - entschieden wir uns dann auf Grund des tollen Wetters, einen Ausflug in die "Bay of Islands" zu machen. Hier gab es nun 2 Bootstouren: eine Delfintour inkl. Schwimmen mit Delfinen und eine Tour zum "Hole In The Rock" (ein Riesenfelsen names "Piercy Island ...

Johannes, Mink and I went on a free 2 days boat trip because we had worked for a local Kiwi. The boat trip was for free because there was a film crew which was shooting for an Australian show called "GETAWAY". It was awesome. We did fishing, night kayaking, snorkeling, barbecue on the sea, night swimming and much more.<br><br>But the &#8220;highlight&#8221; was that ...

... it and found out it was only 67 miles long. It was still impressive though. The driver drove on the beach for pretty much the whole length of it. We stopped a couple of times to take photos of the beach and "The Hole in the Rock" (a piece of land out at sea with, surprisingly, a hole through it). We also stopped to see a pack of wild horses running along the beach. We even had to drive though a bit of the sea at one stage because there were a group of rocks in our way. When ...

... the Waitangi Treaty, about the war canoes that the Maoris constructed, the flags that are of importance to all people in New Zealand and visited the Te Whare (hope I got that right) and the Treaty House. After that we went to a show of Maori dancers and singers. I did have a better idea of how things all happened by the end of the visit. From Waitangi, we drove through to Paihia where we settled into our motel ...

... who would NOT SHUT UP, but other than that, it was great. We stopped for lunch on Urupukapuka Island, which was absolutely stunning, and had this little holiday camp set up right on the beach. We also delivered some mail to a couple of residents who lived out on the islands, and I was literally agog at how amazing their houses were. Admittedly I didn't see inside or anything, they could have been an utter shambles design ...

... were seated. The food when it came was fantastic and we took the recommendations of the waitress of this family owned business. We left feeling very stuffed in deed and were both glad of the 15 minute walk back to the hotel!! The next day we were off bright and early as we had a big day ahead of us - we decided to head up to the very tip of NZ, Cape Reinga which was about a 4 hour drive away. The weather was again fantastic so it was amazing when we got up there. It is also a ...

... the water. Unfortunately, the weather was cold and rainy, so there was no way we were going to tough it out in the freezing cold water. Instead, we enjoyed relaxing in our comfortable hotel room and watching bootleg episodes of The Office that we'd purchased in Bangkok. After so many months on the road, we very much enjoyed watching good TV and eating a home-cooked meal in our room. There was a ...

... amazing (at last!) On the tuesday we were supposed to go on a dolphin trip but unfortunately due to too few people booking teh trip it was cancelled. It was even more dissapointing as there were Orca in the bay but oh well! We went for a nice walk along the beach with Lauren too (she was on our bus up there) and then went back to the hostel where I spent the evening chatting to crazy people from a different tour in the bar. Wednesday was our full day tour up to the cape ...

... than on the south Island. My hyphotesis is that there are not enough people living on the South Island that make it worth to build difficult to construct - meaning twisty roads through challenging topography. That's different on the North Island... Certainly, one of the most beautiful places we discovered was the bay of Islands, with Russel being a pretty remote place with all kind of comfort one ...

... 29th Tara and I got out of bed and headed to where the bus was going to be picking us up. If we were gonna go straight to Paihia the bus would have taken us about 4 hours, however we weren't going straight there of course - we were going the long way round... via the Waipoua Kauri forest and Hokianga harbour. So off we went in our little mini bus going North - the sun was shining and all was good. Our first stop was at Matakohe where the "famous" Kauri museum is, I didn't go ...