Our first few days in New Zealand were pretty typical: drinking, gambling, shopping and going to the gym. Thankfully we met up with our old mate Gav who has lived in Auckland for a while, and it wasn’t long before we were out and about seeing what NZ had to offer.

First off we made a few friends at the the Titirangi festival of music and then shortly after went to see Andy’s home made pizza oven. The guy has one arm and made a mobile pizza shop all by himself. Single handedly you might say? The wood fired pizza oven made a damn fine pizza, and some provided us with tasty breakfast pretzels. Cheers Andy!

Gav also took us on our first real adventure outside of Auckland, leading us to the water park and thermal resort in Waiwera. We slept in the van, in a sweet beach front camp site. The site cost $16 but got us $15 off the price of the thermal spa… so it was kinda like camping for a dollar.

We went to the park in the evening and were looking forward to relaxing in some hot pools, however it was the slides that kept us busy all night. Gav told us there were a few slides that didn’t look like much, but they were awesome! We spent the night running up the stairs, racing each other like a bunch of kids. We did spend a little time in the cinema pool and hot pools, we even sampled the worlds best water, but it was the slides that made the night.

After Waiwera we drove up to the Bay of Islands. Paihia is only a small place, but has a steady flow of Backpacker buses passing through. This meant we had little option other than to party it up in a Base hostel for a few nights. We did manage a little activity though, as we went into the bush for some quad-biking. We almost went jet-skiing instead, but the quad-biking was a great call as we had sweet couple of hours quading around the countryside. Thankfully we were the only people out there quading, as our enthusiasm for health and safety meant dressing up like highway cops from the 70’s.

The safety gear was definitely necessary as the tracks were steep, narrow and pretty sketchy. However it was out in the relative open that our only accident happened. I’d like to blame Captain Careful (Ash) for driving too slow; but, have admit to idiotic driving when I plowed into the back of him. Luckily there was no real damage done and the owner didn’t see a thing.

We picked up a stray in Phiaia as we offered our new mate Jayce a ride to Auckland. Unfortunately we couldn’t take him all the way, as our apparently ultra reliable Toyota Hiace blew its head gasket. Luckily Ash had bumped into an Afghani guy who said he’d give us $1800 for the van if it ever broke down. In the end he gave us $1400 but that was better than the $200 we would’ve got from a regular scrap yard. Apparently he dismantles them, and ships them to Afghanistan where they are in massive demand. It seamed a bit suspect to us, but we decided to take the cash and run. He tried to give us a check but we were having none of it.

For the second time we’d lost money on a van, but things could have been worse, and we’d had a sweet few days. Next up is a festival in a forest…