Kia ora

---

First time in the Southern Hemisphere for me - Jen had been to NZ before. First impressions were that it was exactly like England, cold and grey clouds. Ha-ha. The weirdest part about flying to NZ was that we set off at 11.30pm for Los Angeles on Sunday night, for a 13 hr flight, and arrived in Auckland NZ at 9.05am Tuesday morning. Due to the time difference etc we completely missed Monday. The flight wasn’t too bad this time, a little turbulence but I even managed to sleep for about 2 hrs, Jen slept or about 8 hrs!

Once we arrived in Auckland airport, we got the blue bus to Auckland city centre, only costing $16 each for a 30min trip. The currency was better in NZ, it was half to the pound e.g.£1 was $2 new Zealand dollars. Once we got sorted into our new hostel for the next few days ’Ponsonby backpackers hostel’ we decided to get something to eat and try and stay awake otherwise it would mess our body clocks up. We went to a Nando’s on Ponsonby Road, which was owned by an ex professional rugby player who used to play for Harlequins rugby team in London. The owner was called Tani Fuga, I made Jen wikapedia him so I could check, and he’s there alright, even mentions the Nando’s he’s opened. We then took a walk down to the viaduct harbour. There were rugby posters everywhere and they had even made a fan zone on part of the harbour, full of bars n big TV screens.(see pics). The first thing we did in the city centre was buy hoodies as it was windy and freezing, but could of just been the fact we flew in from Vegas. We got back to the hostel around 8pm and it hit me, Jen said I was talking and then just slumped asleep…the jetlag kicked in.

For the 2nd day we decided to skype a few people, so if your reading the blog , but don’t have a skype name, add us ‘DazandJenbass’, then went to the Auckland museum which was highly recommended on trip advisor. The museum was good, it showed u all the Maori artefacts and life stories of some of the warriors in the past, I even managed to sneak in another Dazzy b pose in an actual Maori house..(see pic) ha-ha. We actually didn’t get to the museum until 3pm, and it shut at 5pm, so we missed 2 floors of the museum ha-ha, but it only cost us a donation of $10 for the pair of us. After the museum, we went to the supermarket and stocked up on some cider and food for the hostel, we just chilled again for the 2nd night, and met some German lads from Stuttgart named - florian, teese and Pascal. Jen was well impressed because all my German speaking came back to me e.g. ich spiele fuss ball and wie heist du, wo wohnst du etc? It made a nice refreshing change to Jen showing off with her French speaking he he.

Paihia - we set off from our hostel at 10a.m for a 4 hr coach journey to the bay of islands. We arrived around 2.30pm, again a lovely place, bit windy, but to be expected on the coastline. The room we stayed in was amazing, very comfy double bed and ridiculously clean, we were very happy. For our 1st night we went shopping and made tea ourselves…giant NZ green lip mussels fresh from the supermarket, in white wine sauce ($2.99 for a Kilo!). We met a nice girl called Katherine from San Francisco, another girl called Becky from Stoke and a nice German lad called Tommy. After we ate we decided to go to the pub for a few beers with Tommy and Katherine, Tommy could only speak a little English so I had to use my German again, which he appreciated, although it was a lot harder this time in a loud pub ha-ha.

Day 2 - We decided to join Katherine for a trip up to Cape Reinga, the very top of the North Island. It was a 3 hr journey there so we rented a car and split costs. We stopped off half way for World Famous fish and chips in Manganui, then again at the Sand dunes for a bit of sand boarding which was excellent (see pics). Once we arrived in Cape Reinga, we walked to the lighthouse at the bottom and took in the magnificent views. There was a line of crashing waves, in which the Tasman sea meets the Pacific Ocean, amazing views. On the way back we took turns again driving and decided to stop at a pub in Manganui again, for a couple of beers, and the nice lady behind the bar, let us have a Thai takeaway in there. Whilst we were in there we noticed a Parrot, walking round named Barley (see pics), we couldn’t believe he was 38 years old, and could live up to 90 years old ! Once we got back we got a quick change and went out for a couple of drinks to the pub to watch Samoa vs. South Africa, everyone was supporting Samoa, the atmosphere was crazy with these kiwi’s. We met up with Becky again and met a couple of funny lads called Ritchie and Dougie who live in Paihia, they got us all excited for the boat trip, before we retired for the night.

The boat trip - After checking out of the hostel ‘Saltwater lodge’ we went around the corner to Tito’s for a $11 full breakfast (which they put fried onions on?), then went to the library for the day to waste time, whilst we waited for the 4.30pm meet of the boat cruise. Once we arrived at the meeting point for the boat trip, it was raining heavy and we were thinking it was going to spoil it all, we were wrong! There was 6 of us altogether and 4 crew members for the entire trip, normally there are up to 36 people so we were very lucky and had loads of room on the boat. The 4 people we met were:- Sylvie from Czechoslovakia, Iris from Germany, and 2 lads from NZ…Simon and Adam, who were filming for their business they started up called ‘camper mate’ (www.campermate.co.nz - spread the word!) you tube it and you’ll see them, apparently were going to be on the video. Once we set off we were offered beers and they explained the rules etc. The Bay was rocky and poor Iris felt a little sea sick, but me and Jen were fine, probably due to the ciders we had drank so we were well on our way anyway ha-ha. The 4 staff members were Adam from NZ (the skipper), Geoff from Massachusetts, Axel from Mexico and a fab girl named Yuki from Japan.

We started off with a game of duck shooting, in which they had a plastic duck on a float and reeled it out for us to shoot with a paint gun. Simon won that competition, me and Jen didn’t hit it once ha-ha. After we arrived at the overnight spot, we had some tea and did a little fishing, nobody caught anything, but it was fun. We all swapped stories with each other and the crew, and then got ready for the night kayak. We all got into our swim gear, even though the sea was rough and off we went into the darkness, crazy I know! You just had to be there to understand how dark. Me and Jen couldn’t control ours, and found out afterwards that everyone else had been kayaking before, so Jen started veering out to sea before Yuki rescued her, and I went round in circles for ages, trying to get back to the boat. In the end Yuki tied Jen onto hers and took her out to see the phosphorescent fish, and I managed to get back and have more booze back on the boat, chatting to Simon bout his and Adams tour of NZ so far. The end of the night was crazy, there was clouds everywhere so it was pitch black when they turned out the boat lights, and all we had was torches to get to the toilet. They told us that normally they have moon light and shooting stars etc. Adam the skipper started playing his piano and guitars on board whilst all the girls sat and listened and the lads just chatted, and I smoked at the back of the boat in darkness, a scary experience!

In the morning, we had some porridge and got our swim gear on again ready to go to the island for snorkelling and trekking. Jen was knackered so she took the boat with staff, whilst I managed to finally get the hang of kayaking and paddled to the island. Once we got there, the heavens opened up and we were getting soaked. We walked up this path, to the top of the island and the views were spectacular, even with cloud and rain. Once we got to the bottom, Sylvie wanted to go snorkelling still, the mad women! Yuki ended up joining her and they caught 5 sea urchins. When we got back on the boat, we all ate the sea urchin eggs, which tasted alright to be fair, and apparently go for $500 a kilo in Japan!? As we didn’t really go snorkelling for the 2 hrs, we all did some fishing again, and I caught 2 snapper fish. We couldn’t cook them though, as they have to be a certain size. Jen was gutted she didn’t catch anything, but she only tried for 15 minutes, miss impatient ha-ha

We headed back in the afternoon, through the rough waters and rain again, but it didn’t spoil the experience. Once back on shore, we walked to a pub for a drink and then got the coach back to Auckland still in our fishy smelling clothes, back to the hostel for a big sleep.

Had a great last day in Auckland - done nothing! Vegged all day reading, its been really nice having a ‘day off’ if that makes sense! Ready and raring for our Stray tour which starts tomorrow.. going to be pretty hardcore and action packed but its all good!!

TTFN xx

---