Bay of Islands and Auckland sunshine

I rose early (6am) to check out and get the Magic bus to Paihia. First impressions of Magic were good, I had a bubbly bus driver called Lisa who was full of info, brain teasers and riddles and had a cool selection of music on her ipod. My fave teaser was 'Name the 7 countries in the Northern Hemisphere that have the letter P in the name. It cant start with P or have republic in the name though'. It took a while but I got em all (see how you do). I also got chatting to one of my fellow passengers whose name was Arran. Between the teasers, the bits of info and someone to chat to the journey went by pretty quickly. We also had a couple of stops along the way which included a nice waterfall and a stop just outside Paihia to look out over the Bay of Islands. So when I landed at the hostel I was in good spirits. I was staying at a place called Peppertree Lodge and as it turned out so was Arran. Cool bananas! It was a nice place; quiet, clean and comfortable. Me and Arran went to find the supermarket and beef up the old provisions as well as for a general look around the place. After that I just lounged about the hostel really. Here I met Conall who is a Welsh guy on a tour of NZ and I spent most of the evening showing him card games. A few other people began to return to the hostel from their daily adventures including 3 girls from LA. They fit the American stereotype of being clueless about things outside the borders of America (or probably California in their case). At one point I ended up trying to explain the difference between Ireland and the UK, this was pointless as they couldnt grasp it. Later in the evening they stuck on some hollywood movie with Angelina Jolie in it that id never heard of and before they pressed play they asked the three of us (Arran, Conall and me) if we needed subtitles on. We just kind of looked at each other and said we would be fine. English subtitles because we might not understand the American accent.....sigh.

The next day Arran went up to Cape Reinga which is the most Northern part of the country and I hung around Paihia. I went for a walk since it was such a nice day and ended up walking to a waterfall which was a 10km round trip. Good thing it was a nice waterfall, I would have been pretty pissed if I walked all that way for a crap one. After that I took the ferry over to the nearby island which houses Russell which used to be the first capital of NZ I think. Its a cute little town with some really old buildings and a pretty good viewpoint (atop a steep hill) which gives a good view of the bay. Back at the hostel I had some dinner and a game of RISK with Conall and the hostel manager. My first game in a long time, which I naturally won :) In the morning I got all my gear together for the trip back to Auckland and caught the bus in the afternoon. I spent the journey chatting to my fellow passengers and we got to Auckland in the early evening. I got there in plenty of time for poker night in the hostel. Here was another thing that I hadnt done in a while and with 8 of us playing at a fiver a piece it reminded me a lot of games back in Maynooth. Unlike most of those games I managed to win this one and was 35 quid richer! The money was quickly spent the following day on a harbour cruise. I got some nice pics of Auckland in the sunshine which are a rarity, especially in the wintertime. After that it was early to bed for my early start in the morning on the bus to Rotorua!

Auckland is a nice enough place but its just a city and doesnt have a whole lot to do. Paihia then is a small little seaside town with a few things of interest in it and plenty of things nearby to do (like the Cape). But my NZ adventure wouldnt really start until I got to Rotorua which is home to a lot of activities and cool stuff.