Cats and Parrots

On Friday morning we got up ridiculously early because of our jetlag, and after having probably the best breakfast of my life we got a bus on to Paihia in the Bay of Islands to try and catch some of the glorious weather we expected when we got here. Sadly this did not happen. The highlight of the bus journey was probably a massive sign across an entire field saying 'Jesus is Lord'. After that novelty had passed, we went to find our hostel - the Pickled Parrot and just wandered round and chilled out for the rest of the day. We talked to a really weird German lady that was staying in our room who basically put a downer on our entire trip by saying how bad the south island was going to be at this time of year and how everything would be closed. Great, good one.

The next day in the morning I was getting so annoyed because there was a cat in our hostel and it had been sitting outside miowing for literally an hour. So I went outside but there was no cat - it was actually the parrot who had learnt to immitate the cat! Ha ha. It was so naughty and annoying as well and would sort of chase you around the hostel and it bit on of Flo's buttons off. After all of this morning excitement, we went kayaking. We met our instructor Kent who reminded me so much of Peter from Family Guy and another guy called John who came with us as well and they were both Canadian. It was such a great day - we kayaked through loads of Mangroves and then to the Hararu Falls which was really cool. We had a really nice coffee break on an island in between which was really fun. In the evening we hung out at the hostel and the weird german lady we met (Nicole) turned out to be really funny and we also met a hilarious german man called Eric who was really weird.

The next morning we got up at 7:15 to go on a bus tour to Cape Reinga, the highest point on New Zealand. We very nearly got on a bus full of old people but then luckily found the right one. Our guide was called Spike and would not stop talking ever and you couldn't really tell whether he was speaking Maori of English a lot of the time as he talked as though he were singing a song. He also cracked many a hilarious joke and constantly said 'sweet as..'. He also constantly took the piss out of the old people tours - even when we had to take 5 old people onto our bus because theirs was too crowded. hilarious. We stoppen in the Ancient Kauri Forest where there were massive trees and then at Kauri Kingdom where they make loads of cool things out of them. then we drove along 90-mile beach which was incredible. Especially with Spike's driving of hundreds of miles an hour. Then we went sandboarding at Te Paki Stream which was INCREDIBLE. It was literally so much fun the sand dunes were amazing, especially after the rain. We then stopped at where the Tasman sea meets the pacific ocean which was pretty cool and then finally we got to Cape Reinga and got soaked because it was pouring with rain. On the way back we had some delicious fish and chips which is apparently the best fish and chips in the world. hmmm. So yeah it was such a great day. In the evening it was still raining so we just sayed in the hostel with the germans and also met a group cos nice English people who we also talked to.

We're now back in Auckland, about to get a bus to Hamilton.