Today we picked up the car and drive from Auckland to Paihia stopping of at loads of little places along the way. the scenery is fantastic!! We stopped of at this little random shop along the way - and we had some Hokey Pokey on the bonnet of our car (its an ice cream by the way!) the owner of the shop started chatting to us and was asking where we were from - Ellen gave me a tip and said noone will ever know where we live so just say North London - do we did - he said where - we said beds - he said where - so then said LB - then he said he was born in Queen street in LB how random is that - we couldnt believe it at first..

We stopped of and had a look at Goat Island - where loads of people were snorkling etc ellen went down to the waters edge and then a big wave came along and slapshed her, as she was walking back she fell over on the rocks and then an bigger wave came in and soaked her trousers again i was wetting myself laughing lol! sorry mate - again!! lol

We carried on in our little car up to Whangarei (bit of a lesson for ya all 'WH' is pronounced with 'F') we went to the falls there - My first waterfall it was so lush!.the littel walk after it wasnt so great so we carried on up to Paihia. Where we went to the signing of the treaty, was so cool - loads of maori carvings and the big ol boat that they used etc the carvings were beautiful!. We had our first concoction of food tonight, rice with vegetables and a bit of curry sauce from the jar on the top...Budget budget BUDGET!!! lol

Saturday 14th March 09

Today we went sailing with 'Carino Sailing' a little red catamaran, must have been about 20-25 people on board. We sailed from Paihia to russell to pick up some more people on the way, then went out to sea. they call it the Bay of Islands, well what can i say you have to see it to really get the full picture - amazing. we saw some Blue Penguins they were so cute and well fat lol, then a pod of dolphins came over to us..so cool - me and ellen had our feet hanging over the edge of the boat and they were so close to us...they were jumping out of the water and playing with each other was so cool...we ended up going to this tiny remote little beach on one of the bays, you could either get the dungy over or swim - i chickened out on the swimming but ellen did it! I freaked myself out with what was in there. will do it next time! we walked to the top of the hill and the views were so pretty! We walked back down to the boat had a BBQ and made our way back - i think we were out for about 6 hours it was so nice!

We left Paihia and ended up driving up to Broadwood where we stayed with Heather and Robb on a Farm stay. We got there and was greated by PeeWee the sheep ellen got well excited - he was so friendly at last she could have a photo with a sheep lol.

We went with Robb to put the 6-8 dogs in their kennells for thie night. They had 3 horses, 6-8 dogs - peewee the sheep, fred the Pig, two milking cows and over 250 cattle.We settled in had some food and had a chat with heather and robb for a bit before we went to bed.

We got woken up by the dogs howling in the morning, was a bit different than the phone alarm. We had some homemade bread and then went out to milk one of the cows 'Camembert' was so cool. robb said it would have taken us half hour to get a full 10 litres but it would only take him 5 mins so he gave us a little demonstration.. Heather then took us to feed the little calves and then we me fred the pig - how hairy - OMG!!!!

We had to leave them unfortunately to go up to Cape Rienga...

xx