Trip to Bay of Islands

We caught the bus at 7.40am and were greeted by our tour guide Nance. Such a fun and crazy lady!!!! She made everyone interact with eachother straight away to get rid of any nerves! She talked all about Auckland and where we were going on our trip, didn't realise that Auckland was twice the size of London as there is a massive urban spread, whilst the city is pretty small. Everyone seemed to really hate Auckland...even the people who lived there!! The great thing about the Stray bus experience was that they stop off at places of interest on the way to places. Our first stop was for some breakfast in a small town. Then it was onto Walkworth to see the kauri trees which were absolutely massive! The next stop was Goat Island which was a marine reserve. Some people went snorkling as the water was so clear....but it was freezing!!! After snorkling in the cooks and maui i was not keen to get in! But i saw loads of fish standing on the rocks anyway! There was a little waterfall and the view was amazing. we stayed there about an hour and then made our way to the Native Bird Recovery centre in Whangarei. Nance knew the owners really well and so they let us see a Kiwi bird called Sparky. He was one legged adn balanced on his beak and one leg most of the time. This was an extremely rare experience and i was so excited to see and touch the kiwi. Not many people have ever see a kiwi let alone touched one!!! There was also 2 tui birds which apparently spoke just like humans but they were shy today and didnt want to speak. On the way to our hostel we also stopped off at a point where the Lord of the Rings filmed one of their fight scenes, also there were calvings in trees apparently done by the props team at the farm where the film crew stayed. We finally got to our hostel called the pipi patch, we all had a BBQ and a few drinks, met up with Sarah and Michelle (from the cooks) in the hostel! We all watched a dvd and chilled out.