After leaving Auckland we drove up to the Bay of Islands. Everyone we know that has spent time in NZ raves about this place but we failed to see its charm. It may have been because of the weather (it poured) and that we are on such a tight budget thanks to petrol consumption, another pot noodle anyone?! So we continued up to the top of the North island to cape Regina or however it is spelled (i don't have the Lonely Planet to hand for useful spelling tips).

This cape is where the Pacific and the Tasman sea meet. There is a dinky lighthouse at the end of the cliffs that you can stand next to and take the obligatory photos from. The place was pretty lovely and worth the drive, there were amazing views and sand dunes the size of mountains. After that we drove back to the bay of islands, it was a mammoth drive that day but worth it.

We ended up driving back to Auckland and hanging out in the suburbs across the bay once we left the Bay, mainly a place called Devonport were we had some posh nosh at a restaurant called The Engine Room. The food was great, and because we were out of towners (to put it mildly) they gave us these extra tasty salt cod balls as a taster before we began our meal. Really nice of them! Yum!

Devonport itself was cute, a little seaside town looking out onto the CBD of Auckland, all the houses were pretty, all wooden, multicoloured, and New England looking. The high street was quaint and for the night we found a nice cul-de-sac that happened to be on a quiet beach to sleep for the night. It was cool to wake up to sunrise on the beach. We watched a lunatic elderly man do his stretches in the morning and take a dip. After you mate.

Yesterday we visited another couple of Auckland suburbs before hitting the road again. Firstly Ponsenbury, where we mooched around the high street and the local park which had some cool sculptures of old houses that used to exist around Auckland, they were turned on their side and looked as if they had sunk into the ground so only a corner was poking through the grass. Tim particularly liked these!

We grabbed a hot chocolate each, Starbucks does a mean white hot chocolate out here that is worth emigrating for, then popped along the road to a town called One Tree Hill. It is what is says, a massive hill, but the tree got hacked down. We drove to the top, looked out, i nearly got blown off the top as it was really really windy, scared me half to death so i took my ball and got back into the car.

We are now in an eggy smelling place called Rotorua. This is the town of geothermal activity. A tourist town with rip of tours everywhere, my pet hate of travelling. But we have managed to find bubbling pools of sulphur and mud for free today so i feel much happier than when we first drove through town last night to be greeted with motel after motel and tacky souvenir shops alongside tourist trap geysers and Maori village experiences. We found a good site to sleep in last night too, a little wooded area off the main road away from the sulphuric eggy smells of town, nice and quiet, with only one other little van like ours for company.

I have a feeling we will just kip there again before hitting the road in the morning to the next place on our list called Tapou, a national park which has some walks and a volcano if i remember correctly.