A relaxing few days in the Bay of Islands

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7th-10th; I'm just going to round this up as internet is bloody expensive!
A windy bus was seriously not appreciated at 7 in the morning! And the fact that while we were waiting for the bus Em put her bag in sick on the street topped it off! Not ideal! but we arrived in Paihia at lunchtime and headed straight to the beach for some sunbathing. When we got back there was a lot of noise coming from the pool and around the rooms; there were 2 stag parties at our hostel that night! Both stags were dressed in bright pink dresses! One guy came and introduced himself straight away- he was a dairy farmer! Since we've been in New Zealand, we actually haven't met that many Kiwis so it was quite cool to talk to some authentic kiwis! I was doing laundry and they were trying to convince me to do their washing= not impressed! That night there was a BBQ at the hostel and we had a wicked night with all the guys; one group got kicked out about 9ish, hardly surprising they'd been drinking someones homebrew all the way on the mini bus!

8th- Today we were off to Cape Reinga; the very tip of New Zealand to see where the two seas; tasmen and pacific meet. It was really strange as the Tasmen was a lot bluer and calmer and then pacific was a lot darker and rougher. We then went to 90mile beach for a bit of sandboarding on 84m high dunes which was so much fun; me, mike and emma did it the most times out of everyone 6 times up that hill and you feel dead! Troopers!

9th- The Danish guys and Emma and Mike were heading back to Aukland today so a few more goodbyes- was actually quite sad as we've been with the Danish guys for nearly 5 weeks and it hit us that we were leaving in a couple of days. That day Em and I went on a sailing trip with 6 other people round some of the 150 islands off Paihia- it was really beautiful and so nice to read our books lieing on the top deck- thats the life we're accustomed to! We got off on one island for a picnic, snorkelling and kayaking and then sailed a bit more all afternoon. It was a bit hairy at some points as the boat was tipped at such a steep angle- I've got some funny photos of Em looking like she is holding on for dear life! It was a really good day though and we then went to the beach when we got back and fell asleep- an exhausting day!

10th- Back to Aukland. We had to check out at 10 so we went out to the harbour to have some breakfast and chill before our bus at 3. It was so hot and we really didn't want to leave Paihia and it just reminded us we were leaving soon😞 We got back to Aukland about 7 and after making a meal out of rice and a dip we met up with a couple of guys who'd been on the same bus as us. $1 champagne in the bar all night- ill let you decide the rest! And even a discounted kebab cause we knew the owner- perfect!

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