Today we decided to head towards The Bay of Islands, so after packing up (and dodging a heavy rain shower) we made a trip to Pack n Save (becoming our favourite supermarket!) to stock up on food then hit the road. We decided to make a stop in Kerikeri and ate lunch in the car park. Lunch was crackers and cream cheese and I dropped a cracker outside the van. Immediately we were joined by about 10 chickens and some birds fighting over the cracker - our lunchtime e...

Today we had to set our alarm(!) as we had to get up early to get to our tour. After breakfast, we drove to Kaitaia in the pouring rain. We checked in for our tour to Cape Reinga and then ran back to the van in the car park to add more layers of clothes! At 9am, about 15 of us got on the bus and our Maori driver, Robin, introduced himself. We set off for our first stop at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, which was supposedly an exhibition about kauris but was really ...

Over breakfast today we chatted to a French couple also staying on the site. They were on their way South and told us about a tour to Cape Reinga they had done from a town called Kaitaia, they highly recommended it....hmm! We set off for our long day of driving, with a few stops along the way. The first stop was Bayley's Beach! We drove right onto the beach and took some photos then ran back to the van as it started raining! The next stop was in the kauri forest...

Today was the day for getting out of Auckland, heading north towards the northernmost point in NZ - Cape Reinga. We drove for an hour or so until we reached Helensville - a small town with a few shops, an information centre and a library with free internet! We had half an hour on the computers then booked our next campsite from the phone outside. We continued north towards Matakohe. On the way, we heard on our 'Tourism Radio' about the Kauri museum - the only mu...

We got up quite early again (getting used to early mornings and early nights!), showered, and headed back into Auckland. Today we'd decided to follow a walking tour that was in our NZ guide book, so we parked up in the city centre, near the start of the route. After stopping for a coffee we found a second hand book shop so bought a book each (I think we'll be getting through a lot of books if we read for a few hours every night when it gets dark!). The next thin...