Paradise Found

I’m not sure if the photos I took today will accurately reflect just how stunningly beautiful The Bay of Islands and Paihia are. The drive up from Auckland was very reminiscent of Scotland, lots of low-lying clouds and hills and trees and sheep, but the coastline scenery? Unbelievable.

Then there’s Paihia. It’s a small town in The Bay of Islands and it’s gorgeous. I’ve already decided that I want to live here. Infact, come Friday, it’ll probably be incredibly difficult to leave. The beach is gorgeous, the people are friendly and there’s a guy down the street from the hostel who guessed that I was from Scotland (and he makes awesome smoothies!).

There’s six of us on the tour. Two guys from Germany, one from the Netherlands, one from England (Bir-ming-haaaaam) and one from Italy. I’m the only girl. Lucky. Me. Hmm. Plus our driver, Scratch and the girl who does the map-reading, Britney or Brittany.

We went on a dolphin cruise this afternoon and saw *gasp* dolphins!! It was awesome (more awesome than Christchurch, because I got TONS of photos of them :D And they’re good photos.) and I’m over the moon about the fact that I managed to stand at the front of the boat for most of the trip, even when it got a bit rough out there! Somewhere in my ancestry, there will be a fisherman and he will be proud of me (especially given how crap I was off the coast of Tenerife).

The Bay of Islands is… just insert every synonym for the word beautiful. If I ever run into the Americans from the hostel in Wellington who recommended that I do this tour, I will hug them and buy them a bottle of wine or something, because this has made my trip to New Zealand. It’s made my year.

Off to look at my photos again and then try to sleep (I’m sharing with the boys, can’t say that I’m overly impressed about that) because yet again, my roommate snored her head off last night. It was like a chainsaw! Terrifying.

Much love,
Kirsty xx