It's not a hit, it's a holiday

So I'd tell you all to scroll down and read the last entry first, but this entry actually concerns things done before that one, so read however you want to.
So I stopped working around the 10th of October and the following Tuesday (was meant to be Monday, but then Liam thought it was supposed to be Tuesday so I just stayed an extra day because I love Taupo) I met up with my dear friend Clare in Auckland and on Wednesday after a leisurely stroll about the city, we started our Bay of Islands Adventure! There are some photographs, they're amazing, they're on facebook. Check them out. Also a map of the Northlands area of New Zealand could be useful for you in reading this.

Day 1: We made our way from Auckland up to Whangarei. We meant to stop at some places, but I'm pretty sure we didn't. We hit Whangarei, stopped at the Pak 'N Save for some food supplies, and booked in at the Whangarei Holiday Park where we sprung for a twin room rather than a couple of beds in a dorm because we are antisocial. Also it had been a whole week since we'd seen each other/been flatmates so obviously we had loads to catch up on. Before we got to the holiday park, we stopped at the Whangarei Falls and had a look around. A nice woman I'm pretty sure was American took a photo of us in front of the falls and then we posed for photos of each of us pretending to climb over a fence with a no climbing sign on it. We are just too funny. There were some cops standing on a bridge over the river looking down and I commented that policemen on a bridge looking down is usually a bad sign. We took some pictures of a sneaker floating in the river and I told her I was going to caption it "Murder Scene." Then we checked in and found out some guy had actually driven over the bridge and crashed in the water and died and so I deleted the pictures off my camera. Awkward. Oh! And I found a novel in the book exchange that was called something like, "His Convenient Marriage" and was labelled a "sexy romance" so obviously I read it. It was possibly the worst thing I've ever read in my life. Even the humor value wasn't enough.

Day 2: We wandered aroung Whangarei for a while, bought me a bathing suit at Glassons (which is like the best New Zealand store, so obviously Taupo doesn't have one), and had coffee at the cafe where our friend Steph had worked before she'd met us. It was a weird place. But we are weird people, so. The beauty of traveling with Clare is that we both have the same crazy ideas, so while normally I can talk myself out of, say, jumping in the cold ocean fully clothed, when someone else seconds it, it happens. Then we went from Whangarei to Whale Bay, a little beach Steph had told us to go to. It was kind of overcast, but that place was still amazing. It's like a Lost-style "Bush all the way to the beach" kind of bay, all secluded and gorgeous and amazing. So if you're ever in the area, skip all the other bays around there (there are many) and head to Whale Bay. Then we went up to Paihia, which is the main stop for most people in the Bay of Islands. We tried to go to Waitangi to check out the Treaty House (look it up, I don't care to explain about the Waitangi Treaty. It's the usual white guys/natives deal of "We'll respect you if you don't scalp us; here have some smallpox blankets in exchange for all your land"), but it turns out the Treaty House costs like $20 to see, so instead we went to the gift shop and took some brochures and the kid playsheets. Then we went back to our hostel and hung out for the night. I think that's when we watched "The Wedding Date" which is a terrible, terrible movie, but it features Amy Adams and Clare and I think Amy Adams is our new favorite actress.

Day 3: I got up early to check out the bay on a bright and sunny day. I wandered around Paihia, then went on the ferry over to Russell, which is a lovely little town for about 20 minutes and then gets kind of boring. It's beautiful and has little cafes and a general store and about 800 inns and a cute little beach. Also home to the oldest church in New Zealand. I think it dates from the '70s or something. Anyway, from there I booked a half-day tour of the bay. I'd heard the full-day one was better, but I'd not realized Russell would be so barely interesting (although I repeat: lovely, so it's not like I spent the morning in some hellhole), so I didn't have time. I did a beautiful half-day tour of the bay, which is difficult to describe, I guess. I took photos, I'll show you. We went out to the Hole in the Rock (it's a specific hole in a specific rock) and we saw a few dolphins that didn't feel like entertaining us, and just generally strolled by numerous picturesque islands. Then I came back to the hostel, and learned that Clare had spent the day straightening her hair, buying wine and potato chips at Woolworth's, and making those little paper fortune-tellers. One was New Zealand-themed and one was Canada-themed. Oh, and she wrote egg puns all over our carton of eggs. Have I mentioned that I absolutely adore Clare? Yeah. So then we sat on the beach together for a while while I drank the beer I found in the free food fridge at the hostel (score!). Then we went inside and watched some TV, and while we were watching Shortland Street (amaaaaaaaaaazing New Zealand soap), this group of rugby players from some military base near Auckland came over to talk to us. They were kind of wasted and it was hilarious. So we were entertained by them for a while, with a brief pause while I freaked out because the preview for the next episode of Shortland St said that someone was going to DIE and then we tried to figure out who it was (side note: I said Shanti and I was totally riiiight. I rooooock). After hanging out for a while longer, we went to bed and I did this one sudoku I'd pulled out of a paper like a week prior. I'm nothing if not devoted. OH! Also while we were hanging out, Clare went to do something so I grabbed a GQ off the table because it was literally the only magazine in English. So I was flipping through it reading about how to buy a leather jacket (side note: GQ is kind of boring) and I accidentally closed it and on the back was a full-page watch ad featuring David Duchovny! I then began to talk to him a lot and occasionally talk to Clare as David. It was awesome.

Day 4: Clare, David, and I departed Paihia for Kerikeri. First stop: Fudge shop we found a brochure for. Delicious fudge breakfast: check. We got triple chocolate (my choice), mint chocolate (Clare's), and lemon meringue (an agreement, which wound up being both of our favorites). Then we drove through historic Kerikeri and stopped at "The Stone Shop" which was...the first shop? I don't know. Half of it was ye olde tyme-y thyngs, and the other half was really awesome random cool New Zealand stuff that I wish I'd bought more of. I spend a lot of time in souvenir shops in Aussie talking about how I wish I had more New Zealand crap. Anyway, Clare bought me a ribbon I just realized I haven't seen in a while and now I'm inwardly panicking. Calm. Down. So then we drove back to the Kerikeri town, which is lovely and way less touristy and way more nice than Paihia. And only 20 minutes away. If you go to the Bay of Islands, stay in Kerikeri. And go to a Middle Eastern restaurant called Cafe Jerusalem, I think, and get the Vegetarian Pita. It has falafel and some other spicey thing and it's the most delicious thing ever. So post-pita, we kept driving up the coast. We took a turn onto this random unsealed road that pointed us towards Kauri trees which are these massive ancient New Zealand trees and oh. my. god. Probably one of the best days of my life. Kauri trees are magnificent and they lead up to this MASSIVE one that is bigger than I even imagined and yeah. Words escape me. I believe I remarked, whilst hugging this one tree, that I thought I was happier than I'd ever been in my life. Amazing. When I said I wanted to go to the Bay of Islands, I said that I wanted to do 2 things: sit on the beach and see a kauri tree. The beach days weren't so great (whatever, now I'm in Australia), but the trees did not disappoint. Then we drove back over the crazy country backroad, and we found Taylor Swift on the radio and we. love. Taylor. If I ever meet Kanye West, I have a piece of my mind with his name on it.
Anyway. We then picked up a hitchhiker who smelled bad and was going to somewhere in Doubtless Bay. But he didn't murder us, so. We dropped him off with some friends of his who then passed us on the road. Then we stopped at a couple of pretty beaches but it wasn't the best day. Then we drove a little onto 90-Mile Beach (which is not 90 miles long. Apparently the guy who named it was like, "That beach is so long, it must be 90 miles!" and it's nothing near that, but the name stuck). Now, I mean it when I say "drove onto" because many people drive along 90-Mile Beach, but Clare, with her not-great car, should NOT be one of those people. She tried, and we got stuck, and luckily some friendly strangers helped us push it out. Then we walked for a bit on the beach, then Clare somehow convinced me that it'd be OK if we waded in the water and one soaked pair of the only pants I brought with me on the trip, I was changing clothes in a beach parking lot into a pair of Clare's cargo pants. Then we went to Ahipara, which is just south of 90-Mile Beach on the west coast of the North Island and I'd never heard of it before but sweet Jesus was it gorgeous. Here was the beachfront hostel looking out over beautiful blue waters with a gorgeous landscape I'd been looking for. Amazing.

Day 5: We started off with a swim in not-too-warm waters at the beack across from the hostel. Then we stopped at the Kauri Showroom and I played in the Kauri staircase. Then we retraced our steps from the previous days because it was beautiful out and I wanted to see some of the Doubtless Bay beaches we'd missed. Stopped at a few lovely, lovely beaches including the secluded Taupo Bay. Which we went to because of the name, but was still really effin' gorgeous. Apparently very safe, too, but we didn't wind up swimming again. Then we stopped for fish 'n chips (or in my case, mussels 'n chips) in Paihia and then we got ice cream and then took some photos of us and David enjoying ice cream. Then we drove some more and on the way, we heard Taylor's "You Belong With Me" which is NOT my fave of hers, but IS the one they play at Mulligan's all the time, so we belted it. Only we started to lose the radio station, so I scrolled a little to find it again, and we kept singing. I found it, but we were way off on where in the song it was. But then the last verse started again and we realized that we hadn't found the radio station, another radio station was playing the same song and then we got to hear MORE! Let's all take a moment: SHE WEARS SHORT-SHORTS, I WEAR T-SHIRTS/SHE'S CHEER CAPTAIN AND I'M ON THE BLEACHERS! Love it. So we finished up our day in...somewhere I can't remember the name of. It was like Mangipara Heights or something, but there were only 6 of us at the hostel and I KNEW one of the girls! Crazy! I walked in and looked at her and we were both like, "We....know each other!" I don't remember her name, but we met in Kaikoura in June and we hung out for like 3 days! The two of us and another German girl and a Canadian girl! It was great fun and kind of awesome to see her again. Then I showered and Clare set off the smoke alarm making an egg and then we watched Monster-In-Law, which is a movie starring J. Lo and the hot guy from Alias (Michael Vartan) and begs the question: how far has Jane Fonda fallen that she is appearing in movies like this? Also stars Wanda Sykes, who is the one redeeming thing (next to Michael Vartan's smile) in the film. I'll repeat it: this is a movie in which WANDA SYKES is the high point. It makes The Wedding Date look like Citizen Kane.

Day 6: We headed on back to Auckland (at one point David slid off the dashboard and turned on the windshield wipers. Oh, David! You scamp!), did a little shopping, and I caught the 7:50pm bus back to Taupo. Got in just in time to share a cab with my drunk, drunk friends. Who goes out on a Monday night? Based on the miserable faces on Tuesday morning, everyone.

Anyway, that was my Bay of Islands spectacular. Hopefully I didn't miss anything important. I mean, I mentioned the falafel and the trees, so I think we are covered. Now comment!