What a week!

Our first stop, as I've mentioned, was Auckland. Unfortunately we didn't get off to the best of starts.. Firstly, I was *this* close to getting a $200 fine in the Airport for not having declared my dirty hiking boots.. I never declare anything (maybe I shouldn't be posting that) and have never got caught doing so. I got called over in the corner, and he said instead he is going to give me a warning letter which is basically an indefinite blackmark against my passport, but only in New Zealand so it's not all bad.

Anyway, to the hostel. Home, right? Wrong. Don't ever stay at Surf N Snow in Auckland. Cut a long story short, we were put in a 6-bed dorm in the Basement - ugh. Ketan got top bunk, I got bottom. The next morning Ketan woke up to having Massive bites all over his body - GULP - We had bed bugs. I'm not sure if many of you are aware of the severity of bed bugs. The bites were enormous and very itchy and they lay in your clothes, as well as beds. The worst was to come though. We immediately headed to reception to get our money back, which we did. They were not sympathetic at all, but let us use their tumble dryer (because apparently the 175 degree heat kills them). Ketan had found an adult bug crawling on my bag.. Eek! We were sitting on the roof of Surf N Snow, pulling in and out loads of washing, which was literally our whole backpack and everything in it. We left the place as soon as possible (5 hours later), and checked into a 3* hotel down the road - phew. That night Ketan got bitten again during the night, and we found one crawling under the pillow. Then I got a trail of bites. So the following morning it was all hands on deck, it was like we were contaminated. ALL day, for two days, we were washing, drying, washing, drying etc. It was emotionally distressing because I actually lost hope thinking we were never going to get rid of them. 6-7 hour days went on this, and I just wanted to get out of Auckland. So after a short delay, we wanted to actually start the travels so we bought our Flexi-Pass which is a coach pass taking you round the whole island as you please, depending on the number of hours you have bought for travel (we bought 20hrs for North Island).

4 hours North of Auckland is the Bay of Islands. It is known to be a scenic area in the North Island, consisting of different towns/islands scattered close to eachother. Currently we are in Paihia, a cute town, and the accomodation is GREAT. It's called Peppertree Lodge and it's so homely, clean and very welcoming by the hosts - Jan, Brian and their son Matt. Upon arrival we took a boat accross to Russell island, which has a lot of history behind it but seeing as I loathe historical sights (and to an extent so does Ketan), we headed for the high-up scenic lookout point. Took some great snaps and then headed back to Paihia.

We've started to finally cook our own food and it feels good. Eating out all the time gets boring and makes you put on weight.

The next place on the itinerary was Kerikeri. Travellers had recommended this place and it was only 40mins on the coach so we headed up. There was a walkway/hike to do which incorporated some waterfalls and fairy pools but apart from that I thought Kerikeri was quite average. There were no coaches going back to Paihia so Matt offered to pick us up and take us back to the Lodge (for $20 - about 7 pounds). Once we got into the car though, we asked if we can be dropped to Haruru Falls which he was fine about. It was a really nice waterfall. We headed back to the main road after, which turned out to be a State highway.. no one there, hardly any cars going past and certainly no cab services. Then I got a random thought - Hitchhike! After a bit of hesitancy, my thumb was out. (first time I've hitchhiked) The second car swerved over - Result! And we were in luck, he was a good guy and I was pretty sure he wasn't a paedo/rapist/murderer or anything of the sort. We were chatting and he told us he used to hitch-hike from Paihia to Auckland - that's a 4 hour journey! Too funny. We felt a bit silly going only half an hour down the road. Back at the lodge, Jan (the owner) asked Ketan how we got home and once he told her she was like, "Oh yeah, that's Dan, he's a great guy!". Random?!

It 8pm now, and we're about to make some Chicken Fajita's - yummy. So everything is going well, and touch wood we haven't been bitten by bed bugs again so we think the tumble drying did the trick - Well it should do with 10 loads of washing! (Sigh). We're off to Hamilton tomorrow, a 6 hour drive down South where I will try to find a high-speed internet cafe to upload photos - fingers crossed :)