Happy New Year in the Bay of Islands

I was desperate to get out of Auckland so, despite the fact all my friends were staying there I left them to it and jumped on a bus up north. I stopped in a town called Paihia (pronounced Pie-Here ironically as there were no pie shops in town). Paihia is my sort of town, its about the same size as Fleet with only a few shops and pubs, but it has a nice atmosphere to the place. It also helps that it is set around a gorgeous Bay full of small islands, hence the name.

The first couple of days I did two really long walks through the woods, so much so that half way round we had to hitch-hike back as it was too far.

I met two guys here and they looked after me over New Year. Both are called Mark which is good, less names to remember. They really looked after me, cooking me food, bringing me cups of tea & breakfast in bed, and always making sure I was having fun. It was great.

New Year's Eve didn't start off too well, I booked on a dive trip to dive the Rainbow Warrior - the Greenpeace ship the French blew up in 1985. I got up at 6a.m. and we spent ages getting all our gear together. Got on the boat, travelled out for around 40 mins with me feeling very sea sick all of the way. When we got outside of the Bay, the sea got really choppy, so much so the dive instructor threw up overboard and I nearly followed suit. It was at that point they decided to turn back because of the weather and I never got to dive :-( Probably a good thing as it didn't look safe, and it is very different to the conditions I am used to in Fiji, the water is very very cold and viz isn't as good. We did get to see some jumping dolphins and a penguin on the way back, so it wasn't a wasted journey.

New Year's Eve evening was much better, I had met a nice bunch of people and our hostel put on a party til midnight. Then we all went down to the beach and watched some fireworks, they weren't actually that great but because everyone was drunk it was great fun. I then decided it would be a good idea to go and swim in the sea fully clothed! All in all a great night and probably one of my best New Year's ever.

New Year's day we all felt a bit rough, but we managed to make it out of bed to go to the best fish and chip shop in NZ. The hoki and chips were the best I have ever had, I'm never going to be able to eat them back in England again.

After New Year I went up right to the top of NZ, drove on Ninety mile beach (which is only about 56 miles long) and did some sandboarding. At the top of NZ you can see where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea, the waves crash together it's pretty amazing.

Mark and I hung round together for a couple of days, we hired some bikes and went on a 'challenging' bike ride (wasn't challenging at all, but the hire shop said it would be), and played a game of tennis where I lost 6-1, 6-1.

The last day in Paihia I went to the Waitangi treaty house, where the treaty between the British and the Maori people was signed allowing them both to live and work together. It's good to find out some history of NZ and it was a really nice place.