Day 4- November 6th

Best day so far!! We had to get up fairly early this morning as we were going on the 'Island adventurer tour'. This basically consisted of a cruise around the bay of Islands with a funny commentary from our skipper, who specialised in dry, sarcastic humour, and then at about 10 we were dropped off on the biggest island, Urupukapuka, with a map and were given free roam until 4.30. Oliver, a boy from our hostel who we had met the night before at dinner, had coincidentally booked in for the same tour as us, so it was nice to add another number to our crew for the day.

Cruising on our boat

The island was absolutely stunning. The water was a sweet blue and crystal clear. Looking down from the cliffs, you could see right through to white sand at the bottom. We hiked up hills and through undergrowth, sharing the navigating between Oliver and I, whilst Emma and Lily went with the flow. 

Appreciate

Crystal clear waters

Our lunch stop was at a picnic bench right beside the beachfront, with not a single fellow diner in sight, except a noisy flock of sheep and their adorable, fluffy lambs. We also had our first encounter with a bio toilet- instead of a flush system, this toilet was simply situated above a very deep hole, with a contained full of sawdust for covering up your business. It actually didn't smell as bad as you would think....

Lunchtime views

The highlight of our trip to Urupukapuka was definitely Paradise bay. Completely deserted, we had the entire beach to ourself to soak our hot and tired feet in the cool sea, which felt pretty good after all that hiking. There were also a couple of rope swings which just topped off the picturesque setting and made for some pretty instaworthy photos!

On the ferry back we were all pretty exhausted, but I had already said I would cook for the group so we stopped of at the supermarket on the way back. Pumpkin and chickpea curry with spinach and cherry tomatoes and the local purple Maori potatoes which had the texture of yams but actually turned out to be pretty sweet and delicious. I made friends in the kitchen and managed to get a bit of curry powder as well which was a bonus. The curry went down really well and there was even enough left for us all to have for lunch the next day! This worked out to be $2.50 for dinner. Result.