Napier (25th Feb - 1st March) The Dolphin Swim

This was our last week in Napier. As nice as it was to stay in a prison we had finally seen and done almost everything here so it was time to move on and do something different. So for our last week we decided that we couldn't leave before we done the dolphin swim at Marineland. It was really good because you could book private swims that meant it would be only me and Kate in the pool with the dolphin for a half hour. Not even the instructor gets in the pool with you, he just sits on the side taking pictures and just basically watches. He never really tells you what to do either, he just says get in there and go mad! Lots of underwater smimming and lots of splashing and the dolphin loves it.

You get the wetsuit and snorkle and off you go. At first I was a little bit nervous when the dolphin swam around me as you would be but I got really used to it and just loved it. The instructor told us to click our fingers and dive down lots and hopefully the dolphin would respond. Its was sooo cool when it did, it would either roll over as it swam underneath you, which was meant to be a sign that it likes you (which is the coolest thing i've ever seen) or it would just make some dolphin noises (which is also very cool to hear underwater.) I'm definately going back to Napier before I leave New Zealand to do it again. It was just an amazing thing to do.

Rotorua (1st March - 3rd March)

After Napier we decided to head up North to the Bay of Islands to find more fruit picking work. It's about 10 hours drive from Napier so we stopeed off in a few places. Firstly, we stopped of in Rotorua again. We liked it the first time around but only spent a day there so didn't really get to do much. This time we stayed for a couple of nights. The main thing we done was going to the Tamaki Maori Village on friday night. This was an experience. Its all set in a forest with little huts that the Maori's live in and get you treated to all sorts of Maori dances, traditions (including the Haka) tribal stories and stuff like that. You even get a buffet meal at the end which was cool. The food was called "Hangi" and means "food that's cooked under ground" I've put some pics up on of all this so you can see what I mean.

KeriKeri (5th March - 11th March)

We stopped off in Auckland on the way from Rotorua to kerikeri to drop in on Mike and Jo for the night before the 4 hour drive up to the bay of islands on the monday morning. We are staying in a backpackers called Hone Heke Lodge which is certainly no prison. It look's just like a holiday camp and we even have a fridge in our room, which is just a great little perk after sharing one with about 100 people in a prison, believe me. Anyways, when we got here, we were told that the work wouldn't start till the 1st April which is wasn't what we where told when we had phoned up! Thats basically all the work that can be done around the North so there is no work! We've decided to go back to Auckland on Sunday 11th March for two weeks and get some office work then come back up when the work starts. We have put our names down here anyway so they'll give us a call when we can come back up. KeriKeri is really really nice. We have a waterfall only 5 minutes drive down the round which leads into KeriKeri river where you can go swimming! I'll defo be getting some pics of this to put on straight away!