I packed up from my hostel in Whangarei and headed further north up to a town called Paihia. Paihia is the main tourist area on the Bay of Islands – a large coastal area that is renowned for it’s fishing.

There are *numerous* tourist attractions here in Paihia, and I’ll be doing a few of them over the next few days. I’m taking a tour up to Cape Reinga (let someone else do the driving for a day!), the northernmost tip of New Zealand, via what is called the 90 mile beach. The tour buses actually are equipped to drive up the beach, and make stops for such activities as dune boarding. I’m looking forward to trying that! That will be Monday. Tuesday I’ll be on a boat going around the Bay of Islands, in search of dolphins and whales and stopping at an island or two. On top of that, if the conditions are right we get to swim with the pods of dolphins too…fingers crossed. Sunday I’ll probably wander the town and nearby Russell, which is a small town across the bay that I can reach via passenger ferry. As for today, the weather is grey and drizzly, so a quiet day planned for now.