Mercury Bay and Black Seeds

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Hello again! (can you tell Laura and I are taking it in turns to catch you all up?!!)

Well after another brief stop in Auckland we hopped on another Big Mean Green Machine (you do not want to know what other names the kiwi buses have!) and a new driver who was suitably crazy and funny, called Dave, otherwise known as cuddles. We had a stop at the top of Mount Eden for some lovely views of the city before heading to Cathedral cove which is only accessible by foot. There were dolphins swimming in the cove and some of the boys went for a dip despite it being bloody freezing!

After a chilled hour on the beach we headed to the town of Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga in Maori) in Mercury Bay to a very cute hostel called Turtle Cove. Me Laura and a couple of other passengers had managed to get tickets to go to a gig of one of NZ's biggest bamds that night, The Blcak Seeds (no we hadn't heard of them either!). They are huge here and the gig was amazing! It was in a small field behind a pub in the middle of nowhere and there were only maybe 800 people. The band were so great, several guitarists, percussionists, trumpet player, saxophonist etc, really good night and sounded so good live! Laura and I spent the evening getting to know our crazy driver better and some of his mates so had a little after party at theirs, dreading the early start tomorrow!

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