....coming to paihia was a good decision- beautiful bay with little islands and fishing boats in the bay- hence the name the bay of islands!! got up early...ish and headed off to the very north of north island to see the joining of the two oceans at cape reinga. There are lots of really nice bays and villiages on the way up with tuquise waters and golden sands which are all spotlessly clean and hardly anyone in sight. That being said we stopped at one bay called whangaroa bay and got talking to a lovely kiwi man. I thought he was coming over to shout at me for parking on the grass but he was actually just coming to say hello and we ended up talking to him for about an hour. He was telling us tales about the local mauri community and giving us tips on the best most beautiful bays to go to on the way up north. He looked at his watch and invited us to his house for dinner after we had been talking a while which we could quite belive but politely declined. All the bays we stopped in are really beautiful but because there is hardly any traffic there are no major roads to them and seeing them often means travelling a fair way down gravel raod and then coming back on yourself which is very nice but didnt leave us much time to get up to the cape. The journey itself made us realise what a lovely time of year we had come in, the hills are full of baby lambs, calves, chiuckens, turkeys, goats which kt made gooey noises at EVERY TIME WE PASSED!!........and of course about 4500000000000000000000000000001 sheep roaming the bright green hills. The scenery was stunning all the way up althought the drive was a a bit long but we both agreed well worth it when we got there. The cape is a sacred place for the native people where the spirits of the dead passed over to the other world. At the point of the cape you can watch as the tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet wave to wave and the spray hits the shear drop cliff face. It was misty up there but that just added to the drama and mistery of the place. You can see for miles from up there and see the sand dunes at the end of ninety mile beach where you can sandboard down the dunes and you can actually drive the ninety miles down the beach - but i dindt fancy it in the toyota vitz (aka hunk of junk)!!!!! after the long drive back to paihia supprise supprise noodles was on the menu for tea although we did push the boat out and have some toast!!

Raglan was our next stop. surfers paradise. A tiny little villiage which is pretty much just there for the waves. The hostel we stayed at had a really nice kitchen, hammocks a hot tub and a sauna, free rental of bikes, kayaks, wet suits, surf boards, skateboards, cosy double bed........and we hated it!! ha ha! The place just didnt have our kind of atmosphere lets say but we did have a nice ice cream and upgraded from noodles to steak with cold beans and raw mushrooms......moving on....

The next day we headed south a little and visited waitomo caves where there are thousands of glow worms and endless caverns. You start the the tour by following a man down into the cave and he gives you information about the carerns and the different rock formations etc and then you finsh the tour by getting into a small boat in the complete darkness. You drift through the flooded tunnels in complete silence and pitch black as your guide pulls you along with overhead ropes and plays a traditional mauri flute which sounds amazing (and also one of those spinny things from crocodille dundee that make whooshing noises). As you float along there are thousands of bright blue lights above you in clusters all over the ceilling of the cave. (kt didnt belive they were glow worms and said they were probably just fairy lights)

Rotorua was our next stop - we smelt it long before we saw it!! It was a beautiluf drive down with amazing veiws of the lakes and mountains and yes more lovely lambs and goats for kt to squeel at!! The reason behind the smell is that it is one if the most geothermically active places in the world. There are random bubbling mud pools everywhere and the surrounding hillside steams contiuously which is very impressive. The actual town is really nice with lots of shops and spas but most importantly it has the most amazing PaknSave shop ever which is a big supermarket that has even cheaper noodles!!! We found a lovely hostel called funky voyager, we met lots of people including some fun Germans who having a competitions to wear sunglasses and shorts for 24 hours, even in the shower, this was espesially odd because the sun hadnt been seen all day. We ate honey and garlic beef stirfry that cost us about 4 english pound to make- thank you paknsave! The dorm rooms we only a couple of dollors cheaper than the doubles so we got a double and had a fantastic nights sleep. All in all a lovely day.

...Still in Rotorua....(we decided to stay put for a while to cut down on driving and to do things properly) up nice and early we decided to vistit wait-o-tapu thermal wonderland which is a park you walk through and look at the various natural volcanic pools etc. The first stop was to veiw the Lady knox geyser which reaches hights of up to twenty meters and errupts daily at exactly 10:15 on the dot.......round about the same time the man puts the special chemical in it to make in go boom! ha! The rest of the park you walk round for about 2 hours and it is amazing if a bit smelly. Crossing bridges over 100 degree steaming hot natural pools, bubbling mud pools and huge volcanic craters stained with bright yellow sulpher. Thge most amazing thing we saw though came right at the end - a lake that is undiscribable. It is that brightly emerald green that it looks like it would glow in the dark. We shared the journey with two German lads from the hostel who fortunately spoke very good English - a lot better than our German. We then went back to the hostel and fell asleep.......its a hard life give us a break!

We have just come back from the pub watching new zealand trash canada at the rugby (4 pound a pint!!) and are off to make some more noodels and do some washing yey!!! sorry for not putting photos up yet but we have already spent all our change writting all this because i type to slow!!!!!!! will put some up as soon as we can.