Paihia, Bay of Islands

Woke up again at eight, totally sleepy. These few hours time difference between Australia and New Zealand actually does have an effect on my. Can't fall asleep at night and wake up late, jet lagged? haha
The checkout time was at 10 and it was already 8:30, I had not made up my mind yet what to do. Originally I wanted to take a few days on a sailing boat in the area, but those plans changed due to some timing. I had the entire day to explore the area and decided to leave the hostel and find a new place for the night. Too many tourists here
Before I went I walked down the street hoping to find some breakfast shop, but most places were not open yet and they primarily catered for lunch and dinner. I went to the tourist booking office and looked through some of the schedules for boat departures. Hmm, I guess I should have booked the day before as most of the cruises had already left. Oh well, maybe I should just take off and find some breakfast in some small exotic place instead.
Packed the car and headed back the way I came the night before. I remember there was a sign towards a fall very near by. That would be very possible as there were high cliffs everywhere, that should be good. Ha, it looked more like a 2 meter concrete wall, the least impressive fall I have seen in many years. I didn't even stop for a picture and headed directly toward Whangarei, a bigger town some 70km South. On the way there were plenty of small coastal towns, bays, beaches and cliffs I could visit and set off for the first one. Entered the information in the GPS and the car started rolling, through the rolling hills, left and right with 100km/h as it was the speed limit - if they allow to go fast, I do so, haha.
At some point the GPS guides me through some small neighborhood and then suddenly downhill when I can see the marina in front of me. Then Amy says: "prepare to make left turn". Ok, that is towards Paihia again... When I turn left she says, "Turn right, and prepare to board the ferry". Hello, that was not part of the plan. Apparently the time saving of taking the ferry was something like 90 minutes, but then again, what exactly was it I wanted to do on the top of that cliff anyway? I park the car and take a stroll around the marina, damn, there are lots of boats here. I now start to believe that statistics about more boats in New Zealand than people
There is only one restaurant on the marina and they are serving breakfast until 11, perfect. I go in and sit down and is being told that it is 11:05, regular menu only. Ok, I take a look at it for a few seconds and excuse myself saying I was looking for some breakfast. Not really, but the prices there were ridiculous, somehow it must be very fancy to eat on a marina? People with boats have too much money apparently.
Back to the car and now what? I look at the map and see the next city with a colored spot meaning some life is far away. I decide to head back to Paihia and check out the restaurants again, by now some might be open. Back there I end up in the tourist booking office again after some serious consideration - I really haven't seen the Bay of Islands if I haven't been sailing on it? There are tours for everything here, but I decide to go and do some dolphin and watching, which is $90. The lady asks me if I want to swim with the dolphins, I ask her if she thinks the dolphins want to swim with me? "The water is too cold to go swimming", I say, but even so end up buying a $105 half day cruise, swimming with the dolphins. The timing was just better than the other tours, and then it is something that costs a little more back home in Seaworld! I had half an hour to find my stuff and get some breakfast.
Met with the rest of the people on the wrong pier. After finding the right boat, we took off to another harbor to pick up the rest of the people. Oh my, that's where I was that very same morning when Amy wanted me to take the ferry, haha. Around 30 people in New Zealand is what they call intimate, but I guess it was better than 130, so all aboard and the jet powered boat headed out.
I was actually happy to hear that they had very strict rules on how to deal with the dolphins, maximum time to spend with a pod of dolphins and how many boats could be in the area at the same time. For the swimming part, there were some practicalities that were deciding whether it would be a go or no-go. For example if they were traveling from one spot to another, it would be pretty difficult to catch up with them in water, even though some of us are Olympic swimmer material. Then there were laws that prevented people from swimming with them if there were juvenile dolphins among the pod. Ok, got it, let's go find some first.
It took maybe 30 minutes of sailing around, before the first dolphin was spotted. Some of the people apparently had never seen one before, because they were shouting like kids. They were jumping around the boat showing off it seemed like, the dolphins that is! Suddenly there were about 35-40 of them jumping and playing in the water all over. Usually they don't act this calm we were told and also not in these big groups, perfect for swimming, in fact more optimal that usual. Of course the lady in charge discovers two young dolphins, which then means that we could not go diving afterall, lucky for them...
We spent around 30 minutes or so with the pod, looking at them play and have fun. There were some dolphins that jumped 4-5 meters in the, but of course I never got any picture of those guys. An SLR camera would have been a good thing to have, 1 second is too long to wait for the trusty old Casio. But still got a few picture that looked good, and saw a lot more amazing stuff that I didn't catch. These guys could have been guest performers in a Seaworld show for sure.
After a certain time the captain announced that we had now used our time quota for that pod and would be leaving to find something new to see. We were sailing around for 45 minutes or so, everyone looking for some other sea creatures. The captain suddenly changes direction, he heard over the radio that a group of whales have been spotted. We headed that direction, but didn't find anything, except water and plenty of it. The lady then tells us that the whales can stay underwater for up to an hour on one breath, so no wonder we are not seeing anything.
End up sailing around the islands for another 2-3 hours, spending a little more time looking at islands and other boats instead. Got to sit out on the stern deck, nice and windy, cold like hell at time, but nice when we had the wind in the back and the sun was shining. That diving thing is probably not going to happen we agreed. At some point he captain announces that we are heading back in, but we should consider ourselves lucky. Some people never get to see any dolphins at all, but they of course you would get a voucher to go on another trip whenever you wanted. Nice, but who has plans on their vacation?
We disembarked the boat and I feel a little warm in the face and on the arms. Shit, now I know what I had forgotten, sun screen. No comments on that one.
I drove towards Whangarei and an hour later I am at the middle of the city, hungry. Too bad, because almost everything is closed, only the fast food places are open. This is mind blowing, at 19:00 on a Sunday all restaurants are closed? When do people eat out then, if not on a Sunday? Finally found a Fijian cuisine restaurant, sounded interesting, never tried that before. I think I still haven't, the food was good, but more Indian than Fijian.
The hostel was something special. I huge house, difficult to say what it has been before. But I rang the bell and an old man opens. He turns out to be very friendly and shows me around the house/hostel which is pretty cool in fact. It seems that the old couple of actually living with the hostel visitors themselves, of course they have a private section in the house, but otherwise sharing facilities like kitchen and living room. They must be in need of meeting new people? haha