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Published: March 20th 2013
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Well it's a very long time since I blogged about our travels, mainly because Australia was a major let down so had nothing good to say and also because since being in NZ we've been quite busy going all over on the Kiwi Experience.
For anyone that doesn't know the kiwi experience is basically a tour bus that takes you on certain routes around new zealand stopping off at all the major places where you can get off and stay for longer or continue on with the minimum nights of the group you started with. It's apparently nicknamed the f**k bus by a lot of people, mainly because its full of 18-25 year olds all out for one thing, needles to say me and Pete were a little concerned on hearing this AFTER we had booked to go on it.......
We firstly boarded it in Auckland where we had been for 6 nights not doing much apart from drinking and eating and generally enjoying the lovely weather and good company we had met in our hostel room at queen street backpackers.
the first stop from Auckland was Paihia in the Bay of Islands. This is a beautiful little
town set in a bay with a couple of islands just off the coast. We spent our first day getting to know people on the bus journey up, going for a 10km walk with them to a waterfall and then meeting more people at the hostel BBQ. It didnt take long before everyone knew our ages and before we knew it our newly made friends had nicknamed us grandad and grandma.... However, after being couped up in a campervan in OZ for three weeks with no-one else around it was lovely to finally have some other people to banter with.
On the second day we had a day trip to the most northerly point of the north island - Cape Reinga. The day was good but made even more fun when a lady who had missed the bus had hitched a ride up to catch the bus at our first stop. She was a complete fruit loop and luckily for me she was sitting right next to me!!!!!!! upon reaching a rest stop she went for a dip in the sea to "wash all the negative energy from her skin" and then sat on the bus completely soaking wet
and taking her clothes off..... I had told her she hadn't missed much so far, namely a tree you visit and hug to bring you luck, but after that statement from her I think she would have loved the tree hugging!!!
The second day included a drive on the bus along 90 mile beach. (Not actually 90 miles, apparently only 64 - not sure why called this??) it was quite fun driving through the shore on the bus with all the water splashing up the windows and something I had never done before. It was made even funnier when the crazy lady decided to lay down and do some yoga moves on the sand in front of everyone and even better when a dog came over and started humping her - hilarious.
Afterward, we stopped at the sand dunes to do sand boarding. Basically flying down the sand dunes on a body board. This was great fun and quite hilarious when Catherine not once, but twice stopped half way down only to be run down by the next sand boarder, oblivious to where she was or what she was doing.
In the afternoon we visited the light
90 mile beach
Driving through the shore house at Cape Reigna - known to be a very spiritual place and where spirits leave from. The scenery was stunning as we stood up high on the cliff over looking the sea. This is also the point where the Pacific Ocean meets with the Tasman Sea and you can see the colours meet and change in the middle - very beautiful.
On the way back to Paihia we stopped for "the best fish and chips in the world". Anyone from England knows that this can't be true but we tried them anyway and although they were nice, there is no comparison in my world.
Paihia and Cape Reinga were truly beautiful places and definitely rival any beaches we saw in Australia. The weather here has also been gorgeous. So far we are having a great time, even of we are the oldies of the bus......
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