My wife and I were on an organized tour of New Zealand. This Bay of Islands Highlights tour was one of our included activities that we could choose in Paihia. We got to see and experience a lot during our 5-hour bus tour. Our van drive Dyson was informative and entertaining. The van included both people from our tour and people from a cruise ship in port. My only complaint is that the back row of the 16-passenger van was too cramped with 4 people in it. Rather than drive hours to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves when we were in Rotorua later on our organized tour, we got to visit the nearby Kawiti Glow Worm Cave here and experience the glowing "worms" (actually maggots). The van stopped at the Puketi Kauri forest and we got to do a self-guided tour. My tour guide had told us that we would do wine tasting on this tour, but Dyson wasn't aware of that. However, he was able to add a visit and tasting at the Ake Ake Winery; several in our group purchased wine to take with us. I liked the winery

We had Nick as our Driver and we had Americans on board with us. Nick was very very patient with two older couple on the tour. We stopped at the glow worm caves into town at the famous tiled toilets. We went onto the large forests then Nick took us to lunch at a lovely bakery then into the waterfalls and photos afterwards with amazing views. I would recommend the tour to anyone. Nick was full of information and more. Thankyou Nick for a great day. We were back in time to board the Ovatiin of the sea in ample time. Great work Nick.