We're back!!! We flew from Auckland to Los Angeles, then to Salt Lake City, and from there to Detroit. We both slept in until the afternoon and are unpacking. Mom is going grocery shopping and I am trying to get my affairs in order with U of M Flint so that I can sign up for an online class for insurance purposes. Thank you for following along with us on our journey! We had a wonderful time and we're glad we could show you all what we did on our trip and what the country was like. I hope you all [View Full Entry]

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Today was our last full day in New Zealand. But you won’t get any tears from us! We’ve had a wonderful time but we are READY to come home. Today we went to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. It was a combination of a museum, discovery center, zoo, and Sea World. There was a moving walkway passing through a huge transparent tunnel (like in the Detroit zoo) which went through a shark tank and other separate tanks of tropical fish. We watched a show on the stingrays and watched the trainer feed them, including their most famous resident, a [View Full Entry]

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Today we took the ferry from Devenport across the bay to Auckland. From there on out we used the bus and our feet to get where we needed to go. We shopped all day and must have ended up walking for at least 6 hours!! We loved Victoria Park Market, which had a bunch of unique shops really close together. We also visited Mount Eden, which is an extinct volcano. There are paths to climb it, including a road and walking trails. I figured out later WHY there were walking paths. They were designed to help you gradually climb the volcano, [View Full Entry]

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Today we drove the pacific coast highway from Wakatone and stopped to play in the sand and surf. The waves were powerful and we underestimated them a few times. I tried to get close for pictures and ended up getting hit by the wave and it REALLY wanted me to come for a swim. It was so hard to stand upright! We both got so soaked we had to change our clothes. We shopped in Tauranga and drove through Kiwi Country, the Kiwi capital of the world. We stopped at a roadside stand and bought a bag of kiwi for a [View Full Entry]

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Today was our last day in the South Island. We headed out to see the whales around 9:00am this morning and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us. On our way we drove by a lookout and mom said she saw seals so I found a place down the road to turn around and pulled back onto the road. Problem is, I pulled into the RIGHT lane, absentmindedly. Neither of us caught it and I must have gone that way for a quarter of a mile before my mom screamed, “YOU’RE DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE!!” Luckily, no cars [View Full Entry]

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This morning we left our B&B in Picton and the South Island behind as we boarded our ferry. It was very large, much like a cruise ship. The ferry ride lasted 3 hours and we spent it taking pictures, socializing, and collaging. Well, I was collaging and mom was doing puzzles and reading. After a bit of collaging, I had a bit of an audience! Mostly children but an elderly couple questioned me about it too. What started from boredom ended up entertaining me for a few hours (and maybe a couple of children). Once we crossed over into Wellington, we [View Full Entry]

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(I apologize for the lack of quality in the pictures for this blog. They were taken at night because that's when our show was.) Today was fantastic. We left Hunterville and headed for Rotorura. We learned that here it is NOT safe to walk off of designated walking paths because there are too many active geothermic fields, as well as active volcanoes! As we were driving we could see the steam rising where it was being released and we could smell the sulfur. We made good time so we stopped at a grocery store and café in a small town. Once [View Full Entry]

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Today mom did laundry while I got ready and then I went for a walk while she got ready and we met up on the main street in Rotorua, called Tutanekai. We drove to the Rotorua museum and learned more about the volcanic activity in the region, the Maori, and the European settlers. We climbed a tower and had a 360 view of the government gardens, lake Rotorura, and one of the many geothermic areas. In the basement we learned about the mud baths that were very famous here up until the 1960s. People came from all over the world in [View Full Entry]

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Hey! My wireless adaptor is working again! :) :) :) So today was spent driving through old volcanoes, bush (aka forest), and rain. LOTS AND LOTS of rain. It rains 80% of the time on the West coast of the South Island. Last night mom and I were itchy from the no-see-ums…or at least the NZ equivalent of them. They got our feet pretty bad. So I took Benadryl and it basically knocked me out for the whole next day…I didn’t know Benadryl was that strong but I slept most of the day in the car. Before I realized I was [View Full Entry]

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Well my wireless adaptor is not working. Glynn: it’s not even listed in my device manager under adaptors and I tried to reinstall it but I don’t know what’s going on... Today we packed up and left Queenstown. Last night I had a bit of a freak-out because I could not find my camera. I was basically hysterical, thinking I lost it somewhere, left it on the LOTR tour, and the thought crossed my mind that it could have been stolen from our room when it was cleaned…although I didn’t want to believe that. I went to bed in a right [View Full Entry]

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