Sunday, 26 February 2012

Rotorua and Paihia


After ParaParaumu we had a seven hour bus journey north to Rotorua. That night we wanted to just take it easy and rest so we treated ourselves to pizza and watched a film in bed. We stayed here for two nights but didn't really manage to do much sight seeing or activities as it was raining the whole time, it was also nice to just relax a bit more.

After Rotorua we got a bus (another seven hours) north to Paihia, The Bay of Islands with a transfer at Auckland. Paihia is located near the top of the east cost of the North Island and we stayed here for three nights. On the first day/night we pretty much done as we did in Rotorua also the rain followed us for the whole coach journey and didn't stop so we were in no rush to get out.

Speaking of which, when we were on the bus approaching Auckland to get our transfer the bus stopped as the windscreen wipers stopped working, the driver couldn't see a thing out of his window and we sat under a bridge as he tried to fix the problem. He ended up ringing the company to say he will be delayed and will have for wait for the rain to stop, I think they refused and told him to just drive on and that's what he did. There we were on a busy motorway, it was heavily pouring with rain and we are driving with no wind screen wipers. The driver had his face pretty much squished to the screen just so he could see. Luckily we got there and only 20 minutes late to catch our transfer to Paihia.

The next day we had 'The Hole in the Rock Cruise' which we booked a few day prior using our Flexi bus pass. We booked the cruise for 1:30, when we showed up it was very busy, we guesstimate at least 100 people and the boat didn't look big enough. We wondered how we were going to see anything, luckily all was fine and we got to see dolphins in the wild, the famous 'Hole in the Rock' and stop off at one of the islands for lunch. We had a very nice day but was very tired after it

We had a lovely time in Paihia and we are now in Auckland. We are due to catch our flight at 3pm (NZ time) on the 28th from Auckland Airport to Los Angeles.

Will Write Soon


Jon x 

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