Bay of Islands Pics part Uno

So here are some pics from my bay of islands trip this past weekend. Kelsea, the other OSU exchange student, and a few friends crammed into a rental car and drove up there this weekend. It was about a four hour trip or so, and fortunately the car was pretty efficient so petrol was pretty cheap. Along the way we stopped at a cave (cost mucho dinero so we didn't enter), saw some artistic toilets (not my idea, but they were actually pretty cool) and gaped at the green vistas along the way. We spent the night in a hostel after making some mexican food. All 5 of us were americans, and dammit we miss fajitas (not pronounced Fah-Jit-ahs dad). The next morning we took a cruise of the islands and saw the hole in the rock. It is navigable but not in the rough seas. I'm realizing that I get seasick pretty easily, so that took away some of the luster, but it was still awesome. We saw bottlenose dolphin up close, learned some history of the area, and snapped a bunch of pictures. All in all we were tourons (part tourist-part moron) but I loved it. On the way back we detoured over to the west coast and stopped in one of the few native Kauri forests left in the country. Most of the Kauri trees were logged decades ago, but there are some left in the hard to get to areas. Here are some selected pics.

Jake, Kelsea, Serena, Melissa and Janice in Paiha

Doing what I do best, monkeying around on the beach

During the Island cruise, there are so many cool beaches and isolated islets there. Overnight camping is not allowed unfortunately

Sweet advertising for bike parts

Serena posing for the Oldest Kauri tree