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.