"If I stay in bed I can't go home..."

Since we only had a morning to kill, there wasn't much point in booking anything. So instead we raided tat shops and stopped in a couple of cafes for tea (and a small quantity of cake...).

We also stopped and watched some people getting flung in the air by some weird reverse bungee type thing, along with pretty much everyone else in the street. Then we took some pics of the SkyTower, drank some more tea and headed back to the hostel for our bags. And then got taken to the airport.

Several hours to kill in Auckland Airport was not helped by not quite having enough change to buy a bottle of water between us. Ack.

And then came the epic long flight home. We all managed a few hours sleep, which was nice. Claire and I watched Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy for the lulz and decided that I need to write some sort of fanfic involving Loki, Moriarty and Saffron. This is a wonderful idea.

Finally, some 30 hours after we left Auckland, incredibly jetlagged and yet horribly awake, we came into sight of Birmingham Airport. At which point Amy makes the mistake of asking if anyone had had to abort a landing before. Of course, we all said no and got giggling. So when we're almost on the runway at Birmingham and I apply passenger brakes out of some weird habit, it suddenly becomes apparent that we haven't actually touched down. The plane takes off again. 30 hours we've been travelling and right now the last thing we want is an aborted landing.

Amy jinxed it.

The captain says it's wind conditions but we know. It was Amy. She jinxed it.

But hey. We landed safe second time round and for the first time ever we actually applauded the crew, having been hacked off by people doing the same thing on the way out to New Zealand.

We already want to be back in New Zealand.

"KAKARIKI"

Our second stop in Auckland wasn't really a stop in Auckland. We took a trip to Tiritiri Matangi which is an island sanctuary where they've eradicated non-native species (rats and the like) and made it safe for endangered native species. It's one of the few places where you can see Takahe, which are enormous flightless birds a bit like giant moorhens. As a bit of a birdwatcher, this was awesome. Not going to bother writing much more on this - let's just lob in a load of photos.

Just before we finally came across a pair of Takahe my camera died, so here we have some of Claire's and Amy's photos.

Claire, we decided, had fallen in love with the Takahe. It was sweet.

I had a bit of a stupid moment on spotting a couple of red-crowned parakeets and started sort of whisper-shouting "KAKARIKI!" much to Amy and Claire's amusement. And I have no photos of this and neither does Amy, so have one of Amy's of a female Stitchbird instead.

And then we got on a boat again and Claire somehow managed not to get too seasick. Again.

Arrival back in Auckland began with a trip to a supermarket for food. In the process we passed a busker singing Bruno Mars songs, but it went more like: "When I see you face..." Bless him.

Aaaargh, the departure is looming.

Falafel

After the adrenaline rush and whatnot of the Cape Reinga/Ninety Mile Beach trip, we took a more leisurely tour on our second (and final) day in Paihia, taking a cruise out into the Bay of Islands.

First spot of the day was a pod of bottlenose dolphins. Well, mostly bottlenose dolphins - one of them had adopted a common dolphin calf.  Very cute. Behold, almost decent photos, courtesy of the fact that bottlenoses don't swim as fast as the dusky dolphins we saw at Kaikoura.

Lots of birds were seen, but photos are lacking in that department. So have some really bad photos of a pod of common dolphins instead. Woo.

And then there were some fur seals on a rock.

And then we finally made it to the Hole in the Rock, which was kinda the point of the trip. Skipper said it was too choppy to go through the actual hole, so we were a bit surprised when we started reversing in. Claire overcame her seasickness long enough to join us at the stern to take some pics before we all fled back inside away from the spray and the wind. I do believe we have a selfie of this...

Anyhoos, then we started back and Claire went back to feeling sick. We stopped off at Otehei Bay on Urupukapuka Island on the way back and took a walk up to a lookout on top of the headland. Which was windy. Very windy.

Amy fed a seagull. Amy doesn't really like birds coming near her, so I was very impressed. Here is a short clip:

Hot chocolate was drunk on the boat and we decided to get off at Russell instead of Paihia, given that we had a ferry ticket included in the trip so we could get back later. There isn't much in Russell, so we had a very brief wander round and then headed to a little cafe/restaurant for lunch. Mmmm, falafel burgers.

Lunch consumed, we got the ferry back to Paihia and raided shops for tat. No tat was bought, but we acquired a large quantity of yummy chocolate. Mmmmm. So instead we deposited ourselves in a cafe and spent an hour or so drinking tea and eating nice cake. We also got a trip booked with the lovely lady in the i-Site for the next day in Auckland. Said lovely lady turned out to be from Manchester. Not sure why this is relevant...

And then we went through the routine of retrieving our rucksacks from the hostel and waiting for the bus. Again.

"It's a case of shags!"

Morning did nothing to improve our liking of Auckland, especially when we tried to drop the car off. We weren't sure where we had to leave it, so Claire and Amy deposited me outside the rental office so I could find out while they went round the block.

20 minutes later they reappeared, having got stuck in roadworks, one way systems and the general crapness that is Auckland's road network. We were not impressed - them having been stuck and me having been stranded in the drizzle with no coat. We finally said goodbye to Ead, our trusty Ford Focus.

Anyhoos, having said goodbye to Ead, we took a walk down to the i-Site. It was still drizzling so we figured we'd head to the Auckland Museum. This turned out to not be the best idea, especially since it involved a much longer walk than we'd expected and it was starting to get quite warm. Half an hour after passing a sign which claimed it was 15 minutes to the Museum, we finally arrived. It's housed in the old War Memorial Museum and has some amazing exhibitions.

Some ignorant kids were climbing on the war memorial itself. I made some inappropriate remark about murdering them. Ahem. Moving on. There was a Spitfire. It was awesome.

There was also a pretty awesome natural history section. Which resulted in Amy coming out with "It's a case of shags!" and me giving her the disapproving look. Oh dear.

Aaaand, then we had to go and retrieve the rucksacks from the hostel and walk to the bus stop. Which resulted in much pain and groaning. Ugh.

Then bus ride up to Paihia. Which was long, dark and wet. It was probably pretty, but it's hard to tell when it's that dark.

And by the time we got to the hostel it was too late for check-in and we planned to leave early in for a trip so we had to leave them a note. Yay.

"English speaking people crouch down so the others copy you"

Long blog title is long.

The day began with a trip to a shop to finally buy some jade, given that we'd been saying for most of the trip that we wanted some. Jade was bought. I acquired a manaia, which is a little protective spirit type thing. He's called Nessie because it looks a bit like a sea monster.

Then we had a very short trip down to Lake Rotorua which stunk of eggs courtesy of it being a volcanic lake. There was also a posing seagull.

Then came the drive to Waitomo. The sat-nav insisted on sending us down the back roads again, but we'd got used to it by that point.

Waitomo was damp. First up we headed to Ruakuri Cave. 2 hour walking tour ensued, which took in some amazing formations and awesome little glowworms. I have no good pics of the glowworms, but here's some half-decent photos of fun geology.

At one point Meg, our guide, turned all the lights out and we went through the passage conga style. Amy and Claire walked into a post. The ceiling was covered in glowworms and they were reflected in the river below the path. Actually, the Maori name for glowworms means something like stars reflected in water.

After Ruakuri, we headed down to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. This started with a little walk around with an excellent guide (who's name, unfortunately, I didn't catch). At one point, seeing that a lot of the group weren't following her instructions to be able to see the glowworms, she loudly announced "English speaking people, crouch down so the others copy you." It made us smile.

Walking section over, we headed down to a little jetty on the Waitomo River within the cave and took a little boat ride into the dark. This was amazing. The ceiling was absolutely covered in glowworms, the only light in the cave. The guide steered the boat using cables strung across the cave and finally, after going round in circles straining our necks to gawp at the pretties, we headed out along the river to another jetty. All the awesome.

And then came the drive to Auckland. Which was fine until we got to Auckland proper and the sat-nav was incredibly unhelpful. We had to drive round in circles looking for the hostel for ages. Not fun. We do not like driving in Auckland.

"Whales and dolphins and seals, OH MY"

The day began with a beautiful sunrise over the Seaward Kaikoura Range. My photos do not do it justice.

The car was frosted over. There was no scraper to hand so Amy scrounged a scrap of wood from the firewood pile and used that instead. It worked. In fact, it's still in the car, just in case.

First we drove into Kaikoura proper and took a stroll on the beach. We claimed part of it as New Grimsby for which I think Claire might have the photos.

And then the real excitement. Whale watching. Sea sickness tablets taken (just), wrapped up in many layers, we set out on the good ship Aoraki. We obviously wanted to see a whale, but didn't expect too much.

We saw a whale. A massive damn Sperm Whale, just lying there on the surface, bobbing in the waves. Many pictures were taken.

And then another one appeared. There. In the distance.

And then another and I couldn't work out where to look so I just videoed it.

And then they all dived, but I missed it because I was on the wrong bit of the boat.

So we motored away and a few minutes later we saw yet another whale. We are now up to 4 BLOODY WHALES. His name, apparently, is Manu and you can tell by the shape of his tail. And this time I managed to catch it as it dived. Just.

Pootled along some more and yup, just bobbing about, is another whale. Which I also managed to catch diving. WOO!

And then, just to top it all off, we came across an enormous pod of dusky dolphins which were quite happy to show off for us, leaping about and splashing and swimming in the bow wave. Didn't get many reasonable photos, but hey, the moment is what matters.

So, yeah, 5 whales. Apparently seeing 3 on the surface together is pretty much unheard of so imagine our glee.

We then tried out Kaikoura's fish and chips. It's good, but not as good as Grimsby. If we move here, we'll have to do something about that. We have also developed a taste for L&P which is sort of like lemonade and generally delicious. Mmmm.

Day ended with a fairly long drive to Motueka. I think I rode the endorphin high from whale-watching most of the way. Best day yet.