We woke up Thursday morning to a sunny day in Auckland and got ready to begin the next leg of our trip. I was already feeling much better (thank you, Zicam!), and Dustin was miraculously still healthy despite wading through piles of my used Kleenex over the previous 72 hours. Unlike our short trip to the Bay of Islands, we knew that the bus driver and majority of backpackers we started with on this leg of the journey with Stray would probably be with us for a while, so we hoped for the best.