Easter Long Weekend- Bay of Islands

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Easter Weekend=4 days off work, what better time to head north to the Bay of Islands??? We left on Friday morning, only to find that the entire city of Auckland was also heading out of town. So, the "roadtrip" took hours longer than it was supposed to, but we weren't in any hurry and had a good time anyways. We got to Paihia, which was about an hour or so before where we were staying so we stopped and checked out the shops, the beaches and had a drink at the bar on the end of the pier. It's a really cool little beach town and there was lots going on. Plus the weather was PERFECT which we hadn't expected cause the forcast had been for rain. Very exciting. Eventually we made our way further north and got to the campiste that would be home for the next couple days. We had a cabin equipped with a stove and fridge so we could cook our own meals. But before we made dinner we had arrived just in time for a beautiful sunset, so we went and sat on the beach and watched the sun go down. Dinner was good, you can't beat spaghetti. After dinner we were just getting into some card games when we heard a rustle at the door...we opened it up and in came cat that seemed to be right at home. She took a liking to Dennis and settled into his lap, began purring and promptly went to sleep. We figured it wouldn't stay long and would probably not enjoy being cooped up. it had a collar and was very clean and obviously well fed so we think it was just the camp cat that roams around. Well we were wrong about her not wanting to stay! She eventually got down off Dennis' lap and went and curled up on Jess' comfy new sleeping bag. We had to move her when we went to bed so that Jess could get into her sleeping bag, but she didn't mind at all. She slept half the night with Jess and the other half with us. She was so cute and cozy. It was kinda nice since we are missing our pets from home. 😊

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Photos

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Not sure why we look so awkward here....

Sunset
From the beach at our campground

Sisters
(minus 1)

The Next MEC Catalogue
Between all of our bags, packs and sleeping bags we were a living Mountain Equipment Co-Op ad!

...right at home
At this point we were fairly sure she was spending the night...