Day 6: Auckland - Mercury Bay

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10th January 2011

Another 7am start today! We did the rounds in Auckland picking everyone up from their hostels and made a stop off at the Kiwi Experience Office to book busses etc if needed. Once everyone was done we got back onto the bus to find that it wouldn’t start. 2 hours later we were still sat on the street waiting for a mechanic to come, eventually the fault was sorted and we were on our way – however the air-con couldn’t be fixed so the bus was extremely hot!
So, from the Kiwi Office we headed up Mt Eden or also known as Maungawhau, where you have an awesome 360˚view of the whole city. Back on the highway towards Coromandle and we had a brief stop for lunch – it certainly was brief as we were still 2 hours behind schedule! After lunch we got back on the boiling hot bus and continued down to Cathedral Cove. We did about a 30 minute boardwalk until we hit the beach and got to go for a swim- finally we got to cool off! About 20 metres from the beach there was a big rock in the sea so we swam over and jumped off whist the others attempted to take photos. After a nice break we had another 30 minute boardwalk back on the same track up to the bus. Next stop was about 40minutes away which doesn’t sound too bad but on that bus it was pretty bad, especially as the sun was heating it up over the last hour. Anyway next stop was the hot water beaches where we dug our own holes in the sand to make a small pool of hot water. It was pretty cool as you would walk through the pool and come across some real hot spots and other spots would be freezing cold, this was due some technical explanation that I’ve forgotten! Back on the bus for a short little drive to Whitianga which is where we were staying for the night, as we didn’t arrive until late, I opted out of cooking my own dinner and got a spaghetti bolognaise from the hostel. It was really good and I even went up for seconds!

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