29th February 2008

First day of my magic super duper extreme New Zealand tour. Bus pick up was at 7.30, or something equally far too early. Met a girl called Kirsty while waiting and got chatting, she's from Reading. Our first stop on the way to the Bay of Islands was Sheep World, where Kirsty and I went straight in as it looked mega awesome. No one else went in, and it turns out Glen, the drive, told them it was shut because he's grumpy or something!

Had much humour in there though, utilising a 2 for 1 voucher and getting a bag of food, we played with sheep, goats, pigs, llama type creatures, ponies and a deer. Luckily, I've over come my childhood fear of all farm related animals, apart from maybe the crazy nasty pecky chickens.

Our only other stop was at Waitong, for a photo op. and we made it into Paihia at around 12.30. As we had the afternoon free, Kirsty, a girl called Sarah (england), a Canadian lady called Joanne and I decided to go on a cruise in the harbour that goes dolphin watching and through the "hole in the rock". Although we failed to see dolphins, was still good fun, the hole is pretty crazy and we decided to get dropped off in a quaint village across the bay called Russell (Sausalito/Devonport stylee). Kirsty, Sarah and I relaxed in a cafe with soem coffee/beer/wine and then visited the first church built in New Zealand. After playing on the beach for a while, watching a really cute puppy, we got the mega fast ferry back to the main town.

In the evening we all had booked a bbq, which was quite nice and then sat and drank for a while with Glen. Later on we moved to a more upbeat bar (Me, Kirsty, Glen, Kelly(England) and some guy called Craig) Was a good night, though Glen was a bit odd and suspicious. NZ beer was quite nice, though a waitress walked right into me and bounced off quite well.