After a lovely weekend consisting of another dinner with the Kiwis and a Brit girl who is trying to immigrate here, Des and I were off on our road trip.

It seems as though the Kiwis really like taking the piss out of us Canadians. And they have some kind of nerve, considering they do everything bloody well backward here! Driving, on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car, their taps are backwards (and sorry to all those who asked me which way the water runs into the drain, it just all kind of splashes about then just disappears, it's impossible to tell!)

Its around a 3 hour drive north of Auckland to get to The Bay of Islands and it is totally beautiful. I kind of think of it as Niagara on the Lake stuck into a Muskoka setting, think Bracebridge by the ocean with NOTL type shops and hotels. Paihia was my favourite - just gorgeous.

We arrived on Monday night and went up to the Waitanji National Trust and Treaty House. It's a 506-hectare reserve with fabulous boardwalks through beautiful park-like grounds and mangrove swamps.

It was on the grounds of the small Georgian house that the Confederation of Chiefs signed the first treaty with the British government. The treaty granted to the Maori the rights of British subjects in exchange for recognition of British sovereignty. The history and plight of the Maori people is just fascinating.It is not entirely unlike Canada's history.

On Tuesday we took a fast ferry up to the Hole in the Rock, which is an Island where the water has eroded a massive hole in the centre of it. The weather was beautiful and waters were calm so our boat was able to pass through it.

I was also fortunate enough to see a school of dolphins, they were so gorgeous. When we sped away they did fantastic flips in the wake of the boat, it was amazing.

On the way back to Paihia we stopped in Russell, and this IS like Niagara on the Lake. Small, quaint and expensive. We walked around for a bit, then took a small boat back to Pahia where we then set off for Cape Reigna.

It took about another 3.5 hours to get to the cape and it was well worth the drive. It is said that these are the most dazzling seascapes in NZ and I believe it. The cape is situated at the top of Aupori Peninsula which features the famous Ninety Mile Beach (which is in fact 90 kilometres, but didn't have as nice a ring to it so they went with 90 mile).

When we finally got to the top. The view was breathtaking. Cape Reinga was believed to be the departing point for the spirits of the Maori dead. We were fortunate to get there when we did - there were hardly any people, and the area did have an amazingly magical kind of quality to it.

After taking photos and doing a bit of a tramp around, we set back on our way back to Auckland. We stopped at a place called Ahipara on the way back which was SUPER gorgeous, the kind of place you'd want a summer home. Not much going on there except B+Bs and ocean. We stopped at the most beautiful backpackers lodge I've ever seen, or ever will see I'm sure. Set in a wooden villa from 1890 with all restored wood on the inside and a lovely wrap-around porch. It was called Endless Summer resort and it was just stunning. They only had a double bed room though, so we went down the road a bit to another place which wasn't NEARLY as nice, but had family style apartments - two bedrooms, a kitchen, en suite bath, for $60. Pretty good deal, we tucked in there for the night.

Wednesday we began the long trek back. All told it took us around 5 hours to get back to Auckland, and the roads were so winding! We went up the East coast on the way up and down the West coast on the way back which involved taking a car ferry to save some time.

All in all, a really beautiful trip, well worth it! Wednesday night we went to Andy's and ordered pizza and watched Before Sunset. They even had some Hokey Pokey icecream for me (unique to NZ). What joy!