Alright, day two of Ash's and my crazy adventure. :O) After the Far North Tour we were pretty exhausted, but today, we were inspired to get out on the water. We decided to take a 4 hour boat cruise to see the Bay of Islands at its best. It was a gorgeous day as we weaved our way through the bay and were told some of the history of the settlement of the bay. The highlight of the trip was getting out of the bay to Cape Brett and to the Hole in the Rock...

a very poetic name, I know, but it gets the job done, right?

Asleigh and I talked for a few days about doing the two day walk to tramp over the dragon spine to get to the Cape. We then determined that 20km over the tough terrain that is the dragon spine might not be our best option. :O) Anyways, it was really neat to see the islands and the cape from the perspective that we did and our tour boat even took us through the hole. I say it a lot, but it was awesome! On the way back to the Paihia Harbor, we stopped at an island for an hour of swimming (if you brave enough to test the spring-season waters), tramping, beach-lounging and, my personal favorite, coffee drinking.

Before leaving Paihia that afternoon, we went to the Treaty Grounds of Waitangi. This is where the nation of New Zealand really began, when Maori chiefs from all over the island came to Waitangi and signed a treaty with the British in order to ensure protection from external powers. It is also the place where the longest war-canoe is stationed (35m). Sadly, the place was a bit of a letdown, as the treaty is in Wellington (south part of North Island), but it's an important part of NZ's history.

We then went to Haruru Falls on the way to Kerikeri.

A wonderful little brother to Niagara in the States, where we also happened to catch a rainbow. :O)

Kerikeri was voted a few years ago to be the best small town in New Zealand, so of course, everyone moved there. It also happens to be surrounded by orchards, art galleries and have a fair amount of historical importance to it. The backpacker's place that we stayed in there reminded me a bit of the Grapes of Wrath motor camps. Ash and I weren't terribly comfortable there, but we had each other and we had our own room.

Day three included heaps of driving throughout the Mid-North before finally heading down to the Coromandel Peninsula about nightfall. We basically decided to drive west and do some forest and coast driving on the way back down to Auckland. After getting turned around a few times (I'm not quite sure how it turned out to be so difficult to just go west), we made our first stop at a beautiful coast town named Opononi, where we took a scenic walk to see the ocean and dunes against a great mountain backdrop.

The highlight of the day was driving through the Waupoua Forest a few hours later, which is a famous Kauri tree forest in Kiwiland. It's a national reserve and I thought that we would simply turn off the road and take a hike into the forest itself. Nope, the main road goes right through it with a few stops to see the particularly impressive Kauri trees. It was quite the drive; everywhere you looked was incredibly green and the road was impossibly windy. One tree we got out of the car to see was Tane Mahuta, or the Lord of the Forest in Maori.

This tree is 52m high and sprang to life during the life of Christ. Truly, it was a protector of the forest with how overwhelmingly big it is.

After about 8 hours of driving through the north country, we drove down pack Auckland and drove to Thames, the entry of the Coromandel Peninsula. People may ask, "what is so great about this place?". Well, it's a little piece of paradise that people just can't seem to get enough of. It boasts mountains and some of the best beaches on the North Island... Not to mention the much-loved Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove, which we eventually got around to. The first two days were spent touring some of the mountains on a sweet train-ride, shopping in Coromandel Town and carving our own bone necklaces in Whitiangi. Our last day in the area, we tramped down to Cathedral Cove, which was more of a work-out than I think we were anticipating. However, I don't think we would have appreciated the scene quite as much if we didn't have to work for it. :O)

It was a beautiful stretch of beach with some interesting rock formations and the cove, which was formed through erosion of the hillstead by the sea.

Hot Water Beach. Mention it to anyone around here and they'll start raving about the time they had and how you definitely have to go. It's basically a surf beach with a very special feature: geothermal activity. There are hot springs under the beach that can be accessed by digging a foot or so into the sand at low tide. You can rent a spade from the beach shop and in a matter of minutes you can have your own hot tube at the beach. We tried to dig a hole with a austrian couple, however the waves kept knocking over our walls. A group of people offered us a space in their large pit and we gladly accepted.

It turned out that the water coming up from the spring we were over was too hot to sit in. In fact, at one end of the pool, the water was boiling as it rose to the surface. We basically had to stick our toes in at the other end and slowly ease our way into it. A few times the ocean flooded in with a particularly large wave and that helped to cool the bath down to a comfortable temperature. I may not come from a family that spends a lot of time on the beach, but man, that is the way to go if one has a beach day planned.

That night we headed to Waihi Beach before heading back to Hamilton for the night (we were sick of pulling out our debt cards by this time). The next morning we returned the thankfully undamaged car to the rental company and bussed back to Hamilton after a day of wandering/shopping in Auckland.

We really didn't have all that long to rest however, as we were scheduled to head to Amanda's family's house in Tauranga (about 1.5 hours away) the next evening. We spent the weekend enjoying the comforts of home and doing some activities with Amanda's parents. As I had done with Hannah two weekends prior, we headed to Mt Manganui, which is at the entrance of the city's port. It turns out that Tauranga is one of NZ's largest ports and thus, we saw a lot of ships. Anyways, while with Hannah we simply walked around the base of the old volcano, Amanda and her mom wanted to climb it. Wow, was that a hike. I must say that I appreciated the numerous breaks that we took to catch our breaths on the way up to the summit. It was pretty funny though, because we had people passing us quite a bit, including elderly men and women running up the track as a part of their daily workout. Don't let me fool you though, it was quite a climb, especially for my not-so-fit body. :O) The view on top was awesome and as soon as I can bum Amanda's camera from her, I'll post some pictures of the view.

We also went kayaking the next day up the Waimarino River, went out to eat, went shopping and had Amanda's dad serve us some of the best lamb I have ever had. It was a wonderful way to end our two week teaching recess. Admittedly, I did have some homework (or a lot of homework) to come home to though. I had a rather large Geochem exam the day we came back into town and I was definitely up late studying. What an appropriate way to get back into the school groove right?

It's looking like the next couple of months will be pretty chill until school has finished. Andrew and I will head down to the South Island together once the school year finishes. He wants to rent a campervan and do as much tramping as possible. I'm pretty excited about it and may even be able to meet up with some people from the christian communities here in NZ along the way. I'm also working on planning my trip to Aus. It might be bigger, but the Kiwis' strong dislike for anything Aussie and their excellent point about Aus's poisonous/huge creatures... not to mention snakes, has also definitely made me appreciate me time here as well. :O)