Bay of Islands and Auckland
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2007
1
89
91
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Paihia,
North Island,
New Zealand
Monday, December 8, 2008
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. My boss Clive was buying the drinks as he was going back to the UK for a month so wanted to go for a drink beforehand. Once he went home, there were some other work colleagues in the pub so I continued drinking with them. I stumbled home via McDonalds at 10pm - not a late night but I then had to pack.
Anyway, the consequence of this was that once we got to Auckland, our parents picked us up and we headed north towards the Bay of Islands, stopping at the first place we could find that did breakfast. There's nothing like a full breakfast to cure a hangover!
We arrived at Paihia around lunchtime and went straight to our accommodation, Nautilus Resort. I hadn't stayed here before, but for a 2 bedroom apartment it was one of the most reasonably priced, and as it turns out, it was a very nice apartment as well, with access to an outdoor pool, and spa area, and also a spa bath in the apartment as well. Lovely!
We sent my parents off to visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds and Hururu Falls, whilst we walked down to Paihia town centre to book a cruise for Sunday.
Sunday morning we were picked up from the hotel and taken to the wharf where we boarded our boat, ready for a day out on the water.
Mt Taranaki, as seen from the plane window
We were on the Cream Trip Cruise and luckily the weather was perfect. Blue skies and calm waters and very hot. All of us caught the sun, and got a little bit burnt, even though we used sunscreen. Even my mum, who has never been burnt in her life!! We managed to see some dolphins but we couldn't swim with them as they had juveniles with them. Maybe next time we will get the chance to. At lunchtime we stopped at Urupukapuka Island, where there is a cafe that we had lunch at. We had 1hr on the island so there was plenty of time to have a dip in the sea as well. It was pretty cold!
After we returned, we were going to have a BBQ but in the end we couldn't be bothered to cook so went out for a curry instead.
On Monday we headed back to Auckland and after checking in to Jet Park Hotel by the airport we headed back into the city centre to browse round some shops. Graham then left on the airport bus to catch his plane back down to Wellington. I left my parents exploring Auckland whilst I went to Vector Arena to meet up with Jen for the Kylie concert. Afterwards, I met back up with my parents and we went back to the hotel. It made sense to stay there as I was getting an early flight in the morning, and my parents were heading out of Auckland to continue their tiki tour of New Zealand.
