We left Auckland for the Bay Of Islands with Magic Bus. It was an early morning start and we had a few stops along the way, nothing too exciting. We arrived at the hostel around mid-day, just in time to catch the sea cat out to swim with the dolphins. I counted at least 8 dolphins and they swam really close to the boat, check out the pics!!

Some people actually tried to swim with them but the dolphins kept swiming away and the swimmers ended up trying to chase the dolphins without much success. From there we had a criuse tour of the bay of islands and learnt some pretty interesting history. I liked the part about Russle harbour and how it was known as The Hell's Point Of The Pacific back in the old shipping days of taverns, wenches and piracy...

The following day we went north to Cape Reigna and the awesome sand dunes! To get there we drove up the ninty mile beach, on the beach itself!! The bus driver pulled over at one point and got everyone to help him search for Clams. Within 10 mins we had a bug bucket full of clams and some brave people, including Sile, tried eating them raw....Half an hour later we reached the sand dunes :)

The dunes were about 100 or so meters high up. The hills of sand were pretty hard to climb as the sand was constantly shifting beneath your feet. Eventually our group reached the summit and the madness began! Basically you lie on a board on your stomach and lift the front of the board up with your hands and use your feet to steer left or right. The 1st time we got a bit of a push off from the guide and after that we managed ourselves. I did it five times and was absolutely knackered climbing up that dune but it was really worth it. 

Sile sand boarded twice and did pretty well each time except for a wipe out at the end of the second one, we could see as sile's board veered sideways and sent her rolling a few times before comming to a halt in the sand. I had a pretty extreme wipeout and actually went tumbling through the air before landing in the sand and rolling a good few more times before stoping, that wil give an idea of the speeds we were reaching :)

We finished off the day with a visit to the Meeting Of The Two Oceans, one of the northen most points of the north island. There was a lighthouse there too. It was cool to see the area where they met, in the ocean threre was a clash of white waves (currents meeting) for a good distance off shore, pretty amazing.

The next day we travelled down the west coast of the north island and seen a huge tree in a national forest. It was estimated to be 2500 years old and is massive, unfortunately the pics dont do justice to its actual size but believe me it was gigantic!! A short while later we visited Panonia harbour where the town is famous for a dolphin that visited the bay for a full summer in the 50's. Finished off the day by arriving back to Auckland to get ready for our trip to thre rest of the north island.