Ahhhh finally a great nights sleep! Our little cabin was warm, comfy and quiet, which made the 7.15am start a bit easier. Our first stop was a refreshing walk along the old gold mining tunnels at Karangahake, the rocky streams and chain bridges made for some nice pictures. We then stopped at the town of Paeroa, home of the world famous 'L&P' lemon sparkling drink - thought to be a great hangover cure. Our final destination for the day was Waitomo caves, we both chose slightly different activities so parted ways for the afternoon. I chose the Black Labyrinth tour where you descend down into the cave and sit in a donut while floating underneath the amazing glow worms that light up the ceiling. There were a few ... read more

After check-out we rented bikes and cycled out towards Whaitangi, this is the spot where the treaty was signed between the Maori chiefs and the British. The meaning of the original treaty is thought to be very controversial and is still debated in court to this date. Before boarding the bus we had a quick scoot around the town centre; Pahaia is a quaint beachside town and most importantly had TipTop ice cream! The bus to Auckland took just over 3 hours, so we arrived at the hostel just in time for dinner. Bailey's bit: Pahaia is a small quaint seaside village whose main industry is tourism so holiday homes, hotels and restaurants galore! Today's ice cream flavours were; Cat: Pure passion (fruit), James: Orange chocolate chip and rum & raisin. All 3 very good, we ... read more

Apparently Auckland is a party hard weekend destination - the clubs were still going when James went out for his run! We decided to spend the morning at the Auckland museum and walked from the hostel to the 'domain'. We'd agreed to meet a friend of mine (Henry, who I met while travelling in America) after the museum and he picked us up and took us for lunch. We had the most amazing mussels for lunch; they were huge green lip mussels! Henry was a fab tour guide and drove us to Mt Eden, Davenport, Bastion point and One Tree Hill where we got some great views of Auckland. Later, he turned into the hostess with the mostess by giving us BBQ NZ lamb for dinner and selecting a few NZ treats for us to enjoy: ... read more

We managed to recruit lots of the newcomers at Nabua for the cave trip so we were able to go before our departure. Plus, it had stopped raining and blue skies had appeared. The boat ride up to the caves was about 40mins through some pretty exposed bits of sea up past Yasawa Island. A small group of tour guides greeted us and took us inside the caves. The water was cool and the limestone formation was pretty spectacular. To get to the second cave (the spitting cave) you have to swim underwater for a couple of metres and enter the pitch black cave. These caves were also used in the film Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields. After our lunch we boarded the long boat which took us over to the catamaran. Five and a half ... read more

We didn't want to leave barefoot lodge this morning. We'd had such a good couple of days on the island but we were excited about seeing another island too. We boarded the large boat heading north, but encountered an engine failure about an hour from our destination! This meant a very slow cruising speed of 6 knots and a little longer than expected to get to our next resort - Nabua lodge. We'd come through a lot of rain on the boat and this continued for the whole day! I'm not gonna lie I started to get very bored this afternoon as the activities get a little limited in the pouring rain! The food at Nabua lodge has been great so far and best of all the local tea shop bought over some delicious chocolate orange ... read more