Day 15: BAY OF ISLANDS BAABBBYYYY!!!!! the hostel life

We woke up early to catch the "Naked Bus" to the Bay of Islands, which is about 4 hours north of Auckland. And don't worry guys, thats just the title of the bus company. Get your minds out of the gutter.

It was a beautiful ride! The New Zealand countryside is truly incredible. (Some friends did not exactly enjoy the twists and turns of the road though; student night in Auckland can have that effect...)

After arriving in Paihia, we settled into our first hostel. A few people were already occupying it. Apparently they had been working for the hostel for several months to get a free room. Slightly awkward at first, but they ended up being very nice. Except for their scraggly little black cat named Panther. He was slightly vicious. We were very careful not to let our feet dangle from our beds. That was just asking to get pounced on.

Anywho, our groups split up after we all claimed our beds. Amy, Lizzy, and Emma headed straight for the beach while Sara, Brett and I went for a long hike to Haruru Falls. It was about three hours in total to walk from our hostel to the trail and then to the falls. We had a nice walk through the "bush" as the Kiwis call it.

The falls were pretty big. We quickly found out that it was a very large tourist site. A hotel resides just down the road, so we decided to take the main road back to the hostel. Prroobbably not the best decision.... we didn't realize we would be walking on a main highway... but we made it back safe and sound, no worse for wear.

The hostel had a hot tub as well as a bar, and we decided to enjoy both. We met up with some other friends who were in the Bay of Islands from our Global Links trip and hung out at the bar for a bit. Went to bed early with dreams of skydiving in our heads!