Kia Ora! (Maori for hi!) New Zealand is set up very well for tourists. There are different bus companies and plans to take you pretty much anywhere in the country, loads of hostels (as well as hotels, of course) plus a fabulous network of visitor's centers that can make reservations for tours and lodging anywhere in the country. We did most of our traveling by bus. We bought a certain number of hours and then we could plan our route anywhere the bus went. We would call to reserve a space, take the bus to the next city, stay as long as we wanted, then call again (or go online) to reserve the bus for the next place we wanted to go. It worked out quite well. So on our second day, we walked to the bus depot and took the Intercity bus to the Bay of Islands area, 5 hours northwest of Auckland. The first thing we did when we got there was to buy Hokey Pokey ice cream (a recommendation from Brandon). I loved it (and the name!) and tried to buy it anytime I could! The best description I can think of is a honey brickle - vanilla ice cream with crunch. YUM!
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| George holding the ice cream so I could take a picture! |
On the boat tour, one of the coolest things was seeing a pod of dolphins. We also saw the famous "Hole in the Rock", but couldn't take the boat through it because of the poor weather/currents. We had some rain and were very thankful for the raincoats we brought along.
And on our second day, George bought the first of many cookies in New Zealand. To give a little background, he has become the "Cookie Grandpa" to our two beautiful granddaughters. Every time he talks to them, he tells them about or asks them about cookies! So he took every possible opportunity to buy (and eat) cookies on our trip!
Another great day in New Zealand!
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