The Kiwi Experience

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Travel Updates:
The Kiwi Bus picked us up in Wellington on St. Patrick’s Day. We spent St. Patrick’s Day in Taupo, we played some Frisbee (beersby) down by the water and then went on a mini pub crawl at night. It was a fun night but definitely not the same as celebrating at home.
We ventured on the bus again the next day way too early (The Kiwi Bus loves departing at 7 or 7:30 so the alarm keeps going off before 7 am which is not cool) Auckland was just a quick stop we just tried to get some sleep before heading north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. We went on a waterfall hike for a couple of hours with our new friends Emma (Ireland) and Jason (England) who we spent the next few days with. The bar at this hostel was pretty great ($2.00 drinks) and a really great DJ.
Next day we went to the most northern tip of NZ called Cape Reinga. This is the spot where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet and it had a really cool effect on the water (hard to capture on film). We also spent some time playing in the massive waves in the ocean. Another activity on the trip was to go sand boarding. The fastest time someone has been clocked at is 80km/h going down the sand dunes on these little boogie boards. We did a couple runs down the climb was so steep! It was probably one of the best activities so far in NZ. The bus took the “highway” # 1 back to the hostel which was directly on the beach so our driver had to dodge a few big waves on the route back.
Then we were back to Auckland again to pick up another bus at start heading south around the north island. Spotted the first Wendy’s in NZ a major find – THE FROSTY!! We ran into some friends from the south island and caught up with them. They challenged Jon and I to a pool competition which we somehow pulled out the big win at the end (they were pool sharks we just got lucky)
Now we are in Whitanga (and the “w” sounds like an “f” sound here which I am having a lot of difficulty pronouncing it) We are staying in this apartment/cottage. It fits 8 people and we have our own kitchen and living room its pretty fantastic for $25.00 a night it also happens to be right on the beach! We are going to look into working for accommodation here for the next few weeks so we would work for 2 hours and live for free in this great hostel. Keep everyone posted on that front.

Hope everything is great back home! Happy spring!
Love
Colleen

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