arrrrghhhhh

We just missed our bus to the Bay of Islands...which means that we won't get to go as we're pretty much out of time in New Zealand now. GRRRRRRRRRR rage...

We arrived in Auckland last night and we're staying with Rebecca and Mike...my mum's friend's daughter and her boyfriend. They're so lovely and it's been so nice to be back in a proper house after so many hostels (the night before last, we stayed in a REALLY disgusting hostel in Taupo - 6 people in a tiny, windowless room...ew). Their house is lovely and spacious, and we spent last night playing scrabble in a very civilised way, as well as watching all of our skydiving dvds (Mine and Vic's = embarrassing, Mike's is incredibly charming as it has Rebecca proposing to him on it!!)

The plan was that we would stay with them last night, then head up to the Bay of Islands at the top of the north island today, and return tomorrow night for one last night in Auckland. However, since we just missed our bus it looks like we've got 2 full days to play with in Auckland now...which is not a bad thing, make the best of it bla bla bla, but it's just SO annoying when we've already paid for the trip up north as part of our pass!! And we just missed the damn bus by under 10 minutes and the stupid driver didn't wait AT ALL...and our taxi driver didn't know where the pick-up point was which was a contributing factor to us being late...and we got up at 6:30am for NOTHING, and now we've got stupid bags in town...

OK, breathe. We now have time to spend in Auckland, more nights staying in a lovely house, it's fine, it's cool. We're thinking about taking a trip out to some of the islands in the bay.

Oh yeah - and yesterday we experienced yet another extreme activity, "Zorbing"...something you can only do here and, apparently, in Wales. You get inside a giant inflatable ball with a few inches of water in the bottom and get rolled down a hill, basically. Bizarre, but incredibly fun.