Yay!!!! We found the Sun!!!! Guess where it was hiding?!?!? In the Bay of Plenty of course.... apparently this bay get`s more days of sunshine than anywhere else in NZ!!

One problem though, our first theft! We woke up this morning and went into the campsite kitchen to get some breakfast and noticed that the fridge was empty! Another girl staying on the site had also lost all her stuff from the fridge as well! But forget the butter and milk that we had lost... we`d just that night bought a crate of Beer and put it in the fridge overnight to chill. Bastards! At least we managed to drink five bottles at the BYO restaurant last night.

It was a beautiful day though and they have been very un common recently so we went to Waihi Beach and decided to do the Bush walk over to another bay called Orokawa Bay. It was a really good walk through the bush and around the headland until we could see the bay down below us. We got great views across the coast in both directions and then when we got to the beach it was really quiet and we virtually had the whole place to ourselves. We have found that any beach you have to walk to or is at the end of a gravel road will be amazing and is worth the effort!! Roger`s joints are a bit creaky now though after all the off roading we`ve done!! ( I don`t think the rain has helped either).

Since our food had been nicked the only thing we could do for lunch was to buy some fish and chips and go eat them on the beach! It was a tough decision! The we were back on the road again (via the Pak N Save - NZ Supermarket equivalent to something between Asda and Cash and Carry) on our way to The Mount.....

Mount Maunganui is a real beach resort, probably the only real one in NZ, the quieter off road beaches are a nicer destination but The Mount had loads of restaurants, shops, a thermal spa etc. So we stopped here for a couple of days to unwind. Activities ranged from laying on the beach doing nothing to walking to the top of Mount Maunganui!!

The walk to the top of the mount was pretty cool. We didn`t jog up it like most of the locals do, but just took our time admiring the view over the town. It was a pretty steep climb to get to the top, but the views were worth it. Plus we got to watch some Para Gliding guys jumping off the mount. The`re crazy, but it looks great fun... we might give it a go in Queenstown. Once we got back down we decided we deserved a dip in the Thermal Pools next to the camp site. We try and stay near thermal pools whenever we can!! They`re great after a hard day of doing nothing!!

We left the Mount to drive East via Te Puke famous for Kiwi Fruit. We stopped there to take a photo of a rather unimpressive "giant kiwi fruit" then carried on our way through Whakatane and onto Opotiki. This drive was a good one, as the road ran right along the coast and you could see some of the volcanic Islands that lie just off the coast. On the way to Opotiki we stopped at Ohiwa beach - a huge, long beach stretching for miles with nobody on it. All the beaches East of Mount Maunganui are like this with loads of drift wood and birds on them - very different from the sandy bays in the Coromandel. We stayed the night at Tirohanga, a place just past Opotiki that had another huge empty beach. We spent the next day on this beach as we decided what to do next..... After a couple of hours of battling with the NZ Heralds Giant Crossword we changed our plans and decided to go straight to Gisborne instead of driving around the east cape - which actually sounded pretty boring.

The drive to Gisborne was amazing, the road cut right through the Waioeka (I have no idea how to say that) ranges through a deep gorge running along the river. At one point we had to drive right up over the mountains and then back down again and then into the Wine growing regions past huge rows of Vineyards.

Gisborne was a nice, Mediterranean looking town, with some beaches around it, but with not much else to do... all the Wineries were closed since it`s harvest time! We climbed up another hill - this one was steeper but not so high. Gisborne is where Captain Cook first landed in NZ but got attacked by Maoris so left and named it poverty bay - they have loads of "Captain Cook Memorials" dotted around the town - including one, which we couldn`t find unfortunately, that apparently doesn`t resemble his face at all and is dressed in an Italian naval uniform - brilliant!

We found an Irish pub in Gisborne and since we`ve not been pissed since we left Auckland thought we`d check out the craic here! We got there nice an early, as we have learnt, ordered our food and then waited... and waited and waited until after 11pm for other people to turn up and fill up this huge establishment.... we were still the only ones there and so left..... the one good thing was that is was Ladies night and Rachael could get 2 for 1 drinks after 9pm! Thankfully because we`ve not been drinking much that was more than enough to get us merry!! Another point worth mentioning.. as we left the bar, Rachael noticed a sign listing the rules of entry.... number 1 was "Strictly no Gum Boots"!! lol.

From Gisborne we had to double back on ourselves to Opotiki and then off to Rotorua.... The tourism epicenter of NZ!!