2nd Day in New Zealand

Me, strapped into the Excitor boat.
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I slept in, packed my bags up, and checked out by 11am. I met in the lobby for the Contiki Tour and I checked my dive gear into the baggage check at the hotel. There were 27 new people including sixteen people that were finishing there trip and had been together for the last two weeks. We drove all afternoon up north to the Bay of Islands. There are more than 140 islands up there. I met some cool people from all over; a few Swiss, a couple of other americans, alot of Australians, and some Canadians. On our way upto the Bay of Island we stopped and took pictures of an ancient Kauri tree which is over 800 years old. There was another 600 year old one, but it had been hit by lightening and it dead. They are protected tree, since there is less than 5% of there original numbers when the Europeans settled here. They were used for ship masts, since the tree natural prunes its lower branches.

The Yellow Submarine from the Beatles song.
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When we got to the Bay of Islands we had a chance to ride the Excitor, which is a jet boat that takes you to the "hole in the rock". The boat had twin 800 horsepower engine and could go around 40 knots. I took one of the very front seats that they called the punisher seats. They were called that because when the boat would jump out of the water when it hit waves and smash you down on your butt. The good thing was that I didn't get that wet, but my ass was a little bruised afterwards. One girl got totally drenched on almost every wave and she screamed everytime. I felt bad, but is was really funny. Luckily we had rain coats, rain pants, life jackets, and waterproof bags for our stuff. When we got to the "hole in the rock", we went in it and half way through he did a complete 180 and headed back out the way we came in. Then we turned around and shot all the way through it to the other side. He told us story of how the Maoris would swim to the island and climb the cliffs to the top and take feathers from the birds that lived on top. These feathers were put into the warriors clothes to show strength and courage. We when around to the front again and there is a cave that goes through the island just to the side of the hole. The caves starts on one side but continues underwater to the other side. The boat driver said that experienced divers can swim through it. He then took the boat into the front of the cave with the Mission Impossible theme song playing. It was really cool. We spun around once inside and headed back out. On the way back we went by Otehei Bay, which is were the Yellow Submarine that inspired the Beatles song is located. We all grabbed some beer for dinner on our way back to the place we were staying. I got a good deal on some New Zealand beer called Castlepointe. It was twenty 440ml beers, about 16oz, for $22 New Zealand. We had a few beers and some really good BBQ for dinner. After dinner we heard stories from the group that had been together for the last two weeks. They had some funny stories including someone being put in the bag racks inside the bus and someone getting drunk and smashing a toilet. We went to the bars with the Tour Manager, Brendan, and the bus driver, Chris. The first bar, the Pitti Patch, was fun, but got really packed when they closed the porch. The next bar was called the Saltwater, or Salty for short, was really funny. One of my roommates Michael got pretty pissed (drunk) and started dancing on a pole in the bar with a local woman that looked about fifty. We all had a laugh and I ended up going home around 1am.

When we got to the Bay of Islands we had a chance to ride the Excitor, which is a jet boat that takes you to the "hole in the rock".