A chilly hello from Paihia!

I wanted to update with a few more pictures from my day in Paihia today but the computer here was having issues and freezing up so I'm going to save that for a bit later on down the road (literally).

I hopped on the Kiwi Experience bus today at 7:00am in Auckland and headed up to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It's gorgeous here, although chilly with the wind coming off of the ocean. We got checked into our hostel (the "Pipi Patch" Base Backpackers) and I picked up a few groceries from the Four Square a few streets over, then I headed out on a cruise to the famous "hole in the rock" with a few friends I met earlier today on the bus. It was really neat, but very cold! There were a few funny moments on the trip, too - like when a little boy silently befriended me on the boat. He kept coming to see me and he'd look up at me with these big eyes, I'd say hi, and he'd carry on. Finally he came back and pointed to my purse. His mom saw this happening and explained to me that she keeps her cookies in her handbag and so her son thinks that every purse should have cookies in it for him. So cute and funny! I had another good laugh watching a man hold a granola bar above his head on the front end of the boat to tempt a seagull that had been hanging around. It kept diving down toward him and taking quick snaps at the granola bar. He had drawn quite a crowd, and after he had held it for a while, he passed it to his teenage daughter. She held it up and the seagull took only 2 snaps at it before he pulled the entire thing out of its wrapper and flew away with it! Clever bird!

Now I'm back in the hostel warming up, and I might actually top that off with a visit to the hot tub before supper (SO tempting!). They're cooking a BBQ supper here tonight and then we're all watching the rugby match on the big screen in our hostel's bar. All Blacks vs. South Africa. Keep your fingers crossed for NZ! I think they're the underdogs, but hey, you've gotta have a little faith!

Thanks for keeping up with the blog and for commenting. It's fun to know that people at home are reading this. I will post more pics when I can get them off my camera!