More North Island

OK, so the next day in Rotorua, we had breakfast in town before heading out to Hell's Gate spa and geothermal park. We took a walk around the bubbling pools of mud and the sulphur pools. It was very Jurassic Park-esque! Then we headed into the spa and covered ourselves in mud, before rinsing it out and soaking in the sulphur water! Was so nice and warm and felt thoroughly cleansed afterwards.
We then started our drive north to Auckland. Was quite a boring drive but we did it pretty quickly. Eventually found our campsite, it was very strange being back in a city.
As it was Matt's last night we headed into the city centre, and went to a restaurant called Euro, we did gourmet cuisine! And it was amazing. We had a 3 course dinner with wine for only 40 quid each! Started off with calamari, then had kingfish wrapped in parma ham, followed by Spoons of 2011 - 4 spoons with a different dessert thing on each. Very odd things, but was a really strange collection of textures and flavours which worked really well!
Went out for some more drinks and then got the bus 50 minutes home to our campsite.
On Tuesday morning, we accompanied Matt to the airport, to send him on his way home, via Singapore.
Me and Anna headed into the city for some sightseeing, and decided to head the zoo. It was really cool, and for once quite warm and sunny to nice to walk around outside. We finally got to see some actual Kiwi's which are amazing little fluffy birds! Zoo was really good, and also stuffed full of chickens randomly wandering around as well. Even got to see some Aussie animals - wallabies and emu's etc.
Finished at the zoo and went home. Couldn't be bothered to cook so we headed out to a mall to get some indian food and then off to the cinema to see the new Angels and Demons film. Not bad, some good special effects to it!
Went to bed early that night and managed to get 12 hours sleep! We're so hardcore.
Still up the next morning and sorted out our next few days. Then we headed into town to the Sky Tower, the tallest monument in the Souther Hemisphere. But we got slightly distracted en route and may have stopped by some shops on the way. We booked some tickets for the comedy festival for that evening, and then went up the tower. Truly amazing views over Auckland, especially as it had finally got sunny for the first time that day. There were some really nice yachts in the harbour!
Headed back to change for dinner, and then back out again to find a pub to have some dinner and some drinks. So we had fish and chips and a G&T, how English can you get!
We had tickets to see Simon McKinney, a NZ comedian that evening, so we headed to that. There was only about 30 of us in the audience, but was a really good atmosphere, and fortunately he was funny! So an hour later, we headed to a different venue, the Classic, for the Late and Live show. We were so glad to get tickets to this, as there were 5 comedians performing, including one we had really wanted to see but was sold out for his own show (Jason Cook). Wicked show, and we had front row seats, and the poor boy we were sat next to got aboslutelty rinsed! Some very drunken girls were doing some crap heckling and interrupting loads, and eventually got booed and kicked out by the staff! Still awesome show, the comedians were brilliant.
Unfortunately up early the next day to head up to the Bay of Islands. We stopped en route to hug a Kairi tree, the 2nd biggest trees in the world. We were hugging it in order to ask for good weather and sunshine! We are staying in Paihia for a few days. We arrived and jumped straight on a boat tour of the Bay of Islands, up the the hole in the rock. We saw some dolphins on the way and followed them for a bit. We could have gone swimming with them but they had a baby with them so we weren't allowed. Was a really fun trip with gorgeous views over the islands.
Got back into Paihia and bought some food for the next few days. The went back cooked dinner, and then watched a few films that evening.
Yesterday, we had a bus trip up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of NZ. We got on the bus early and started our way up north, stopping for coffee and cake en route. We started the last bit of the drive up north driving up 90 mile beach. Actually it is only 64 miles but that doesn't sound quite as good! Took ages to drive up it, and we stopped on the way to admire the gorgeous views. On the beach we waded into the water, and did some Pipi picking - little clam like creatures in shells, which you could eat raw. And were surprisingly very yummy!
Then went around the corner off the beach to these massive sand dunes, got some boards out and then proceeded to climb up them! Oh and then slide all the way down them. Was so much fun, and got absolutely covered in sand in about 2 minutes.After that we headed up to Cape Reinga, which is the point where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. We were then on a surprisingly calm day so it wasn't that obvious where they met! This Cape is also the point, in Maori culture, where all the souls depart the Earth for heaven.
Was a really good day, and ended it by looking around a few shops, and had the 'best' fish and chips in NZ in a little place called Marongi. They were definitely good fish and chips.
Today, we got up and walked around to Waitangi, where the Maori's and the Europeans signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. This was when New Zealands became part of the British Empire. There was a huge war canoe there and a big marae, a meeting hut for the tribes of NZ. It was such good weather that we walked along the beach, and then went to go play some minigolf. Turns out that the gold was in this big aventure park, with trapeze swings and bungee runs etc. SO so so much fun but now we're knackered and really quite sore! It's still sunny so we might head out to play some tennis later on.
Anyway, we've only got 2 more days in NZ so we will be making the most of the sunshine!
Thats it, up to date. Hope you are all well.

Love Kylie and Anna xxxx