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It's been a while since our last blog update mainly due to the lack of wifi which we've had over the past few days.
After leaving Taupo, we spent a night in Auckland before we were headed to Paihia which is in the Bay of Islands in the north of New Zealand. Our stay in Auckland was pretty uneventful apart from us getting undercharged by 20 dollars for our room which was a bonus and then having to be up at quarter to 6 to catch our bus to Paihia. The bus to Pahia took about 4 hours and we arrived at our hostel by midday. To be honest, the hostel wasn't up to much; the wifi was ridiculously expensive and the toilets and showers weren't great but it was somewhere to put our heads down for 4 days and we could afford a private room. The weather wasn't too great when we arrived as it was your overcast so we had a bit of a walk around the town which didnt take too long then headed out to the supermarket to pick up some supplies.
On our second day in Paihia, we decided to do the around the bay walk which involved about 14km of walking and two ferries and took us to the town on the opposite side of the bay called Russell. It was quite overcast when we left but as soon as the sun came out it got significantly hotter. So much so that we were both canny sweaty by the time we made it to the first ferry which took us across the bay to the tiny village of Okiato. We had walked about 6km by this time through bush so it was fairly understandable. From Okiato, we walked the 8km to Russell which was again through bush and across boardwalk through mangroves. It was a really nice walk and took s about 5 hours once we'd caught the ferry back from Russell to Paihia. As a treat, we decided to have a drink so I got some beers and Beth bought some wine and we sat in the courtyard at the hostel listening to some music and eating fish and chips. All in all it was a good day. On our third day, the weather was nice so we headed down to the beach for the best part of the day. I had to retreat under a tree after about an hour but Beth toughed it out in the sun for most of the afternoon. Our Friday night was quiet and we spent a bit of time huddled outside the public library which has free wifi. There was a constant presence of travellers outside the library enjoying the free wifi.
Saturday was spent much the same as Friday in that we spent most of the day at the beach. On Saturday night, we went to a nice bar on the seafront which looks out over the bay. We could only afford one drink here but it was really nice to sit there and enjoy the last of the days sun. We then went for a pizza at a pizza place where you customise your pizza. Beth basically had as much seafood as she could on her pizza and was quoted as saying it was the bet pizza she's had. I wouldn't go that far but it was a good pizza let down by the fact that thy had ram out of jalapeños.
Today, Sunday, we woke up to pretty crappy weather and had to wait until 1.30 to be picked up by the bus. We've spent most of the morning again huddled outside the library trying to avoid the rain. We've now made it back to Auckland where it is now tipping it down. It's a bank holiday her tomorrow so it's not just English weather that wrecks long weekends off. We are off out tonight with Gareth and Jared who we travelled quite a bit of South America with so we are both looking forward to that before we fly to Australia early on Tuesday morning.
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