Trip to the Bay of Islands

I left Auckland this AM and starting my journey North to the Bay of Islands which consists of 144 Islands and is a New Zealand summer hot spot. To the right is a picture of the Hold in the Rock... world famous in NZ! And below it is one of the dolphins that was swimming and playing with our boat... a pod of about 30 dolphins were present but they are just to fast to get good pics of! This was all part of out 3 hr cruise around the Islands.

The tree in the picture is a mere 800 years old. We stopped by on our trip north It is thought that if you hug the tree and press your nose up against it you will have a safe journey... so that is exactly what I did :) Our bus driver let me know that if I was to try and cut this down I would be thrown in jail or beaten by a local... there is only about 100 of these trees left in New Zealand and lets just say they are precious to the land.