bay of islands and The Rock

relaxing in our room on The Rock
(please note awesome bay of islands
 island in background)

i am not one to endorse products and/or services, but i'm going to give a little shout-out to The Rock cruise in the bay of islands, nz.

first off, the bay of islands is a big bay in new zealand with something crazy like 150 little islands in it.  it's quite beautiful.  and the bolshevik arranged for us to take an overnight boat cruise through the bay and i must say that it was awesome.

the boat itself was kind of like a huge house boat with a big bar/dining/lounging area on the first floor and then bedrooms on the second floor.  i was quite pleased with our bedroom because it had a huge window, sliding glass doors onto a shared balcony .... and best of all it was private.  the bolshevik and i have been staying in hostels to save money, which i do not care for as i do like my alone time with my man.

moving on!  so the staff on the rock were all young people who were very friendly and were very enthusiastic about having the opportunity to get paid to hang out on a boat.  they were great though, they really went out of their way to get to know everyone.

i think the best thing about the boat was how many activities there were.  as a children's librarian, i love activities.

first we did some target shooting, which consisted of shooting a paintball gun at a floating plastic duck.  no plastic ducks were hurt during this activity.  then we did some fishing and amazingly, with no fishing experience, the bolshevik was the first person to catch a fish.  as a reward he was given a free drink, but not before having to kiss the fish he caught.  the fish was ultimately thrown back because it was too small.

after fishing we had a big bbq dinner, and then we went night kayaking.  the night kayaking was absolutely amazing.  once you got far away from the lights of the boat it was really dark and you could see millions of stars.  and apparently in the bay of islands area there is a strange plankton that lives in the water so any time you touch the water in moonlight the plankton let out this luminescent glow, so it looks like you're making the water shimmer and glow just by touching it.  it was pretty magical.  sadly this was impossible to get a picture of, but it will be in my memory forever.

the following morning we had a big breakfast and then went out to one of the islands to do a little hike up a hill (all the islands are quite hilly) and get an amazing view of the bay.  then we did some snorkeling and diving for sea urchins, then some more kayaking, and then we headed back to the dock.

while in the bay of islands we also did this "hole in the rock" boat tour which is just a few hours and they drive you to this very tall rock in the middle of the sea which has a large hole in (hence the name) and then the boat drives through the hole and it's pretty cool.  however, this was really nothing in comparison to the fabulousness of The Rock boat tour ... so if you're in bay of islands and you can only do one thing ... go on The Rock.

bay of islands, nz (i have learned how to stitch together many shots to make a panoramic shot!)