Paihia and the Bay of Islands

We woke up in Auckland, and checked out of our hostel. The bus stop for the kiwi experience bus was literally outside Base, so we eagerly waited outside while a few people started to emerge and wait with us.

One thing about Auckland high street, is that it is full of homeless people, often on drugs and who tend to be quite loud and volatile. Usually we ignored them, but one woman throwing a tomato at another homeless man, made for a good conversation starter with the other people waiting. Here we met Charlotte, a girl from England who was very posh and very smiley. We also met Aki, a crazy american girl. The bus finally arrived and we got on and met our driver Jared, who looked just like Mark's dad which made us feel more at ease.

We jumped on the bus and met a few people who would end up being our best buddies on our New Zealand adventure, and although we didn't know it then, having to spend a few unexpected days in Auckland would be the best thing that happened to us as it meant we got to spend our time with these people!

We started our journey to the Bay of Islands, and Jared was really enthusiastic about our trip ahead, and got us all excited! The drive took up most of the day, but it was good opportunity to get to know all of the people on the bus.

The nice thing about New Zealand, is the plethora of free activities. On pretty much every journey we went on, you were sure to pass a free walk that would take only an hour or so, and the Kiwi Experience make sure you stop and do all of them, as they often end in seeing some beautiful New Zealand landscape. On the way to Paihia, Jared stopped and urged us to go out and take a look at a Whangarei waterfall. This would be the first of many we would see.

As we reached Paihia, the weather started to deteriorate, as we were coming into NZ winter time. Jared said there was an optional paid activity to go dolphin watching that afternoon we arrived. As the weather wasn't great, we decided to opt out, but a few of the others decided to go.
 Jared also told us there was a day trip we could go on the following day, that took you to the very tip top of New Zealand, 'Cape Reinga' where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean met. It was an expensive extra, but it included sand boarding, which we all really wanted to do, plus some extras on 90 mile beach, and the promise of the best fish and chips in the north island at the end. With all of those packed into one trip, we could hardly say no, so we signed our names down on the list to go the following day.

We arrived at Paihia, and were staying in another Base. The three of us were given a room to share with Aki and Mindy, a super cool Canadian girl who had been living in New Zealand for four years already. After unpacking and settling into our dorm with an attached bathroom, we got talking to Mindy. It turned out she was actually being paid by Kiwi Experience to do the trip, as she had started a travel blog when she left Canada, and it had become quite popular on the net. They wanted her to write about all the cool things you could do on the Kiwi Experience, and she showed us her amazing page 'Wings Of a Feather', which you can find in our 'Things we Like' tag on the right sidebar.

That night, we decided to have a few drinks in the bar, where we met a strange fellow who went by the name of both Felix and Jack. He assured us he could do the best British accent, and kept repeating the phrase "hot crispy toast mate", which to this day still baffles us. With him and a few people on our bus, we played a few drinking games, that escalated into another boozy evening, that ended up us being taught how to twerk and sexy dance by Aki, and also going to bed quite late again.

The next day we regretted our decision to stay up late, as the day trip to Cape Reinga included a lot of driving, and we mostly slept for the first bit of the day, missing some of the pretty scenery. We did however have a new driver for this leg off the trip, who went by the name 'Dice' and who was the loveliest fellow you ever could meet. He was good fun and made plenty of jokes, and was also sympathetic to those of us who had heavy heads.

The North Island looked to us very similar to Cornwall England, as it was mostly seaside towns, and the temperamental weather was one we were very familiar too in the UK. The first stop was to Cape Reinga itself, the tip of the islands.

This was considered a sacred place by the Maouri's, so you had to be respectful when up there. According to mythology, once you died, the dead spirits would travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife, which was accessed by leaping of the head of Cape Reinga. It was really windy but the views of the sea were amazing, and the small little lighthouse made for a postcard perfect picture.

The two seas merging together. There was a myth a huge beast lived here.

Next we drove onto the 90 mile beach which is firstly not actually 90 miles long, and is also considered an official highway in New Zealand, with top speed being 100KPH, and is often used by lorries and cars alike, although they have to be special sand proof vehicles like the bus we had was. Dice explained to us beautifully that it is always the oldest and newest road in the world, which was slightly profound. We zoomed down the beach stopping along the way to paddle in the sea and take some more pictures.

After this was the bit we had all been waiting for, the sand boarding! Dice drove around looking for some good dunes for us to board, as he explained the wind changed them everyday so there was never just one good spot. He found a good bit which was very high, and parked up and unloaded the boards. We were so excited for the sand boarding, but the tiring trek up through the deep sand to get the the top made us realize maybe just one go would be enough. 

When we got to the top, the wind was blowing sand right into our eyes, and we had to hold on tightly to the boards so they didn't blow away! Once we had a go and got down the dunes, we were having a great time, racing each other down the hill. Tom managed to fall off and actually hurt himself a bit, as you will see in the video below!

Steph went down one time completely 360ing along the way. On our second go we took turns racing eachother.

  It was great fun, but with hair and clothes covered in sand, we knew the journey back was not going to be a comfortable one.

After our late night and action packed day, the journey back was a drowsy one, however the promise of the best fish and chips kept us going.

On the way, Dice let us stop off somewhere for us to change our sandy clothes and to look in a gift shop. He explained that this was a very special gift shop, as inside was a huge staircase carved out of the middle of the tree. We excitedly went inside to have a look, and there were other impressive wooden sculptures in there selling for extortionate prices. There was also a small art gallery so we spent a while here.







After another short drive, we arrived and ordered our food and enjoyed, indeed some very good fish and chips from Mangonui Fish Shop. On the road we had parked it had a fake 'Penguins Crossing' sign which got Mark and Steph very excited as we had heard that penguins could be found in New Zealand )in the deep south not the most northerly point!) Steph excitedly told the driver she thought she'd seen a penguin to which he explained that the sign was fake, and crushed her hope and dreams about potentially finishing the day seeing a penguin.



From here, we went back to Paihia and all had very early nights after our long day. The next we were leaving and going back to Auckland which we were not overly thrilled about having spent 4 days there prior. However this time we would be some of our new buddies, so we had hopes of it being better! The next day we would leave early at 9am, to get to Auckland for the late afternoon.

As we had won our free weeks accommodation, we decided to stay at Base despite the Kiwi buses preferred stay at Nomads. Our new friends decided to join us, and also had a go at spinning the wheel to win some prizes. No more free weeks accommodation was won, however lots of drink vouchers were won again, despite us all saying we didn't fancy a heavy night after the last few days! That evening there was a pub quiz on upstairs in the hostel, so we all attended. Ourselves along with Mark turned up late so had to go on a team with a man called Ray who was the maintenance man at Base, and a fellow backpacker called Jimmy who had a slight madness in his eyes. The others got into a team by themselves, so the war was on. Thankfully with the help of handy man Ray, we managed to answer some of the ridiculously hard rounds (he must have done the quiz a few times) and with a few lucky answers, we managed to win! The prize was a $100 bar tab at good old Habana Joes which we had attended our last time in Auckland. As the others had their drink vouchers, once again we ended up having a boozy night down in the bar, along with handy Ray and crazy Jimmy who looked like he would kill a man with his bare hands after a few drinks.

Thankfully that night there was no locking out of rooms, and we all got a good nights sleep despite having a boozy evening. Our driver for the Bay of Islands Jared only covered the top part of the island, so tomorrow we would have a new driver.

We woke up feeling rough again, and with a quick Starbucks stop, the Kiwi bus arrived and out jumped our new driver Arius, a cool Kiwi. We boarded the bus, and made our way to a place called Hot Water Beach.