Bay of Islands

A few years ago I had friends come over and tour New Zealand, they loved the tour that they did and highly recommended it. I decided to do the same tour, Kiwi Experience. It's a hop on, hop of bus system where you can stay in one city as long as you want, and they have buses that come through each town every day or every few days. You have a year from your start date to finish your whole pass, which mine is both the north and south island.  So if you like a town you can stop there, find a job and live for a while. The bus drivers take you to cool areas, tells you about the towns, and get you great discounts on all the activities around the country.

The first part of my Kiwi Experience tour was up to Paihia, which is in the Bay of Islands near the top of the north island. Paihia is a little town, with lots of fun activities. I made friends with the girl next to me on the bus trip up to the hostel, and we have since done mostly everything together. The first day when we arrived we rushed to get on our dolphin tour. It was a 4 hour boat ride around the 144 islands (we only went around a few of the islands) looking at the gorgeous landscape and trying to find dolphins. We were not guaranteed that we would find any or be able to swim with them, but only 20 minutes into the tour we found a massive pod of dolphins and jumped in and snorkeled around with them. I had never snorkeled so I was a bit worried I would miss out, but I picked it up quickly and was able to swim around and watch the dolphins play. It was so cool. That night the hostel we were staying at offered a BBQ, and afterwards a lot of the Kiwi Experience people hung out and got to know each other.

Day two we went on a day tour up to the top of the north island, Cape Reinga. On our way we learned a bit about the Maori culture (the first people to occupy New Zealand-more to come on their culture in a future post). We drove the bus down the famous ninety mile beach, which is actually only 55 miles long. And yes, the bus actually drove on the sand. We then went sand boarding, which is exactly what it sounds like, it's boogie boarding down sand dunes. Then onto Cape Reinga to see where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean collide.The last stop was to get legendary fish and chips or as the kiwi's say it with their accents "fush and chups".

Day three was the day that most went sky diving. I however, even in the adventure capitol of the world, will not be jumping out of or off anything. I spent the day on the beach, skpying the family, and wandering the small town. That evening we decided to have a night out in the town, and see what the locals do. We ended up at the hostel bar, but had a fantastic time. I've been spending the majority of my time until now with two people, both from England. They find it fun to mock my accent, and try and teach me proper English, the Queen's English. They seem to enjoy the facial expressions I have to make in order to copy their accent.

Day four we leave the pretty Bay of Islands to head back to Auckland. That day was just regrouping from the late night before and having a stopover in Auckland because we had to, in order to catch our next bus to Hot Water Beach.

More on Hot Water Beach later.

Bye for now <3