Monday 19th December – 19:59pm – Sat in the living room of our air b’n’b, in Tauranga. 

After 10 relaxing days in Paihia, and 4 days at a great air b’n’b house in Tauranga, I am facing at least the next 2 months without seeing any of the guys again, as they are heading down south for Christmas, whilst I stay in the north with dad and Nicki.

After a slow first few days in Paihia, the weather picked up and with it came our sense of adventure. We started with a day trip to KeriKeri, where we played some basketball and had our first taste of exercise in Northland. Naturally I was knackered, but happy to be active again. After some days at the beach, which included a swim out to the jetty to soak up some rays from the middle of the sea, we decided to try and have a night out in Paihia. The pre-drinks turned into a tough session, and we made it down the road and into town, before we had to get a taxi home and pass out. It was a funny attempt, yet once again I could not remember a night out in New Zealand. Nightmares of the night out in The Mount continued to plague me, as my record of nights out in New Zealand stood at 4 nights out, and 4 nights we either got kicked out, or didn’t make it to the club. Heres to the next night out in the Mount hay…

Nearing the end of our time in Paihia, we managed another day of basketball and then decided to rent out some kayaks to paddle round the bay of islands. Unbeknown to us it was going to be one of the best experiences of my life. It was a sunny day, and we set off around 1pm for our 2 hour experience. After half an hour we were paddling around one of the smaller islands when a dark shape popped up alongside Ryan and Ellie’s kayak, and quickly slipped back under the water. Minutes later we were surrounded by loads of the dark shapes, and we released we had paddled into the middle of a large pod of dolphins. The dolphins swam around our kayaks, and began jumping out of the water and putting on show for us. The fear quickly turned to amazement, as we saw hundreds of dolphins swimming around us. Luckily I had been wearing my GoPro on my head mount, meaning I was able to get some unreal footage of the dolphins surfacing around our kayaks. It was an unreal moment. After the dolphin experience we paddled to the closest beach, and relaxed in the sun. We slowly paddled back to the shore, attempting to see any more of the dolphins but they had all swam away. Irregardless of the fact we didn’t see any more, our day and trip had been made by the 20 minute show we had just experienced. That night deserved some casual beers, and we had another relaxing evening in the hot tub.

The 10 days flew by far too quickly, and before we knew it we were saying goodbye to Pirate Pete, our air b’n’b host, and heading off on a 7 hour drive towards the Mount. Just 10 minutes into the drive we were stopped in a queue at a roundabout, when a car drove into the back of us. It was probably only going around 10/15mph, but we still shunted forward nonetheless and it left an awful dent in our rear bumper and boot. The driver of the other car was a nervous looking Maori guy, who had a young boy in his car. He apologised while saying he had to run off as his mother was in hospital. He managed to tell us he had no insurance, and had to go. As dodgy as it sounded, he left his contact details and drove off. The damage to his car was far worse than ours, but we had no choice but to let him go. Nobody was harmed and luckily the boys had purchased insurance a month earlier, meaning the car would be fixed without any charge seeing as the accident wasn’t our fault.

Before we knew it we were on the way again, and pulled into our next air b’n’b house in Tauranga 6 hours later. It was 20km from the Mount, which initially annoyed us and we ripped Ryan for booking the property, but after we realised it had a great pop up pool and was ran by a lovely couple, we subsided the banter and got on with it. The next few days we enjoyed the sun, and all got very burnt. We did some ‘bikini beach body’ exercises in the mornings, which has left me crippled and limping – i’m starting to regret giving up the gym the last 2 months. We visited the Mount everyday, and laid around in the pool enjoying the weather. This property was slightly more expensive than the last, but it was only for 3 days and was worth the money. We extended our stay another day, as the boys were trying to find a replacement car after finding out theres will probably be written off. Its been a great few days and im going to miss this group a lot!

Im staying with Kayla for the next 2 nights in Hamilton, then meeting up with Dad for our Christmas holiday! Exciting times ahead.