So we set off on our road trip from Auckland heading north. One of my friends back home recommended us to go to the Bay of Islands, it looked nice, so that's where we're heading. From Auckland it took us around 6-7 hours to drive there. I actually am so far behind on the New Zealand blog as I didn't write them as we went along, so am writing it while we're in China, nearly 6 months later. My memory is a bit sketchy, so i'll keep these blogs short and sweet. 
 
Camping New Zealand- must have app!
 
We ended up downloading a camping app for New Zealand before we set off, called camping NZ . It was quite expensive for an app at £12.00, but I would say that price saved us loads on campsite fees throughout our time in the country. Basically you need to download the offline maps for the north and the South Island, so that while you're driving, it tracks your GPS, so you can use it as a sat nav, and also to find free or low cost DOC campsites. There are reviews about campsites and what facilities they have, so it came in really handy for us, without it we'd have come unstuck a few times.

Doing a runner in Paihia.....
 
So we ended up finding a campsite the first night, it was in a local area called Paihia, and it was a campsite right overlooking the beach. We arrived after 8pm, so it was getting dark, but we managed to pitch the tent. The owner wasn't there by now, so a guest checked us in and let us stay. We went to find some dinner and found a fish and chip shop, it was cheap and tasty food, just what we like. The next morning when we were leaving, the owner hadn't shown up at the campsite . We tried to pay, but nobody was there, so we didn't pay a thing for our first nights camping and left the campsite. Off to a good start then!

Bay Of Islands
 
For the next couple of days, we basically just drove around the bay of islands stopping at scenic places along the way. They say the north island isn't as beautiful as the South, so if I really like it here, we're gonna love the South island. We found beautiful beaches, driving along the coastline. We stopped at a place called Russell, which was a lovely little port town. There were lots of tourists here and the beaches were good, so we chilled on the beach for a few hours. It's quite hot, so we made the most of the sunny weather.

We could have taken a boat trip around the islands, but things like this are quite expensive in New Zealand, so we're not going to be able to do everything we want. We're happy just driving around and stopping at places around the Bay of Islands . At another place, we stopped there were some rocks and caves, so John went off exploring the caves. I waited on the rocks as the tide was fast coming in. He was gone for so long, I thought he'd slipped on a rock or couldn't get back in with the tide! But he returned and had just been off exploring. I loved the rock formations here, so just took loads of photos. We drove to a high viewpoint, which gave awesome views over the islands. It's really lovely around here.

Purie Bay
 
The last night we spent a night in a really good DOC campsite- Purie Bay. It's family orientated because lots of families stay here in the summer holidays, but there are lots of campervans and travellers too. We set up our tent and cooked our first meal on the gas stove we'd been lent. We'd stocked up on supermarket supplies before we left and just keep the food in the boot of the car. We laid out blankets and had a little picnic at our campground by the beach, it was lovely. I think i'm gonna enjoy our road trip in New Zealand . Tonight we actually felt like we could relax and enjoy our stay here. We paid a small fee to camp; around $6 dollars for us both (£3.00) bargain!

Whangarei Falls
 
The next day we headed back down south and drove for another few hours or so. To break up the journey, on route back, we came across a lovely waterfall, so we stopped to take a lunch break. We had a wander around what was a small national park and Whangarei Falls. There were a few walking trails that led up to the waterfall. We took some lunch with us and ate it by the falls. It was really peaceful here, so we sat by the water, eating lunch, listening to the flow of the water and feeding the ducks. After we'd relaxed for a while, it was time to leave to head back down south.