Week 1 NZ Auckland to Bay of Islands and back again! Ok, so we left South America on the 29th after a 10 hour delay in Santiago and we totally lost the 30th to the flight. hmmm! we stayed with Sels family in auckland for our first couple of days. thankfully rita came with her aunt to the airport, otherwise we might never have recognised her! did the typical tourist highlights of auckland, the domain, the musuem, the skytower at sunset and minus 5 ice bar. all good fun and of course with a visit to the shops on queen street. we hired an estate car between the 4 of us (now joined rita, sels cousin and ellie) so we have freedom! after auckland we headed for the bay of islands with a little stopover at the goats island beach to look at the fishies. we stayed in Paihai at the saltwater lodge. as the hostel lent out bikes for free we decided to take them out for a trip to the local waterfalls. but it was disasterous as selina fell off her bike ("with no brakes") on a nasty gravel track and had to be rescued by 2 kiwis in a car (she limped through the next week). then we rushed to make it to our bay of islands hole in the rock/dolphin tour. the captain made fun of poor ol' sel throughout as she looked a little worse for wear after her fall. check out my dolphin pic! very proud of my new camera! got to see about 8 dolphins and go through the hole in the rock. we headed next up to Kaitiai for our Cape Reigna via 90 mile beach tour. we had the funniest bus driver Robin and met Brian and Gaye (who lent us their beach house for free - lovely lovely couple!) the bus took us along the beach to Te Paki sand dunes where we got to sandboard again (guys the dunes werent as good and the sledges were slower but it was fun). we then saw cape reinga, where the tasman sea and the pacific ocean met - nice lighthouse. ohhh cant forget the staircase in the acient kauri kingdom, iy was like being in a bramley hedge book! also got to spend a worrying day flitting between a+e and the doctors getting sels knee checked out as it was bothering her before we headed back to auckland for a night out with the all clear. we started in the globe bar with 2 4 1 beer, followed by the family bar (gay karoke bar) on Kyber pass road. vey entertaining rendition of i love rock and roll and the host\hostest announced us as virgin lesbians from yorkshire! then we went back to the globe bar to finish off our vouchers and dance!