As I look out the window at the snow-covered streets, New Zealand and Asia seem very far away... We are very glad to be home though. The flight home was decent, as good as it gets with two 10+ hour flights back to back! We had an overnight in Vancouver and were fortunate to crash with Duane's cousin Emily and catch up with her. We also met Lisa for lunch in Calgary airport, which was sweet. And then we arrived in Saskatoon to a welcome committee. It seemed so chilly out, but it wasn't really. We have to get our weather [View Full Entry]

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After the skydiving, we headed back to sell off our excess things and drink in our last few days in NZ. The camping gear was sold as a bargain package to a Canadian traveller. We sold the car the day before we left for 700 dollars. That was quite a relief. We also hit the beach, and spent a day surfing. This time the waves were almost more than we could handle! The last night before we left we had the most delicious meal of lamb shanks with a Guiness broth and mashed potatoes. It was succulent! We tried to savour [View Full Entry]

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Charlotte and I are now to be officially know as "Extreme" dude and dudette. So far in New Zealand we have White water rafted over a 7m waterfall, Black water rafted through glow-worm caves, cruised down hills on a Luge track, spent afternoons Snorkeling and Surfing, but now you can add another extreme sport to our formidable adventure resumes. Today we survived 40 seconds of free fall, jumping out of a perfectly functioning airplane. That's right we SKY-DIVED!!! 12 000ft of nothing but air baby!!! It was some seriously big air!! The anticipation was really killing Charlotte, we had sort of [View Full Entry]

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We've hit the highway again for our last spin around NZ. We went through Rotorua and saw a thermal park that we missed the first time 'round. We then headed South to Gisborne. This is the first city in the world to see the sunrise. Our first day there, Easter Sunday was a bit dreary so we headed to a hot springs. This was awesome, very natural. There were some pools that were a 5 minute walk through the rainforest. Duane had a contest with a nine year old boy to see who could stay in the cold pool the longest. [View Full Entry]

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So way back when we began this New Zealand journey, at the beginning of November we got the heck out of Auckland and drove to the Coromandel. It was rainy then, so we skipped out parts and vowed we would be back. I had hesitations in my mind if we would make it back. But we did! This weekend we had a little getaway. Again, we got the heck out of Auckland (sharing a house with 5 people was getting our goat) On Saturday we did the nice foresty walk to Cathedral Cove. This is an absolutely stunning area. Lush green [View Full Entry]

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I have been meaning to write about what we've been up to during the week while we've been here at Auckland. So here is a synopsis of a typical day for me (some details excluded): I wake up after the first snooze (I am getting slightly better at waking up, maybe because it's afternoon at home?). Get ready and get in our nice blue Herby car (Christina suggested we give him a name to coax him along when he's not starting). We both say "Yesss" when it starts on the first try. Duane drops me off to work at 7:30 at [View Full Entry]

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So maybe you have been wondering "what are those folks up to in Kiwi-land lately?". Well now you can stop wondering and read on. I guess what has been consuming most of our time lately has been working. Charlotte has been working in a pre-school for a couple weeks straight. She will write some more details about that in future blog. I have now been teaching at Southern Cross Campus for 5 and a bit weeks. The teaching has been pretty interesting, challenging and fun. Its neat to be teaching in a school with Pacifika students. The student population is probably [View Full Entry]

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Wow, I can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since the last blog! Since then we've visited some wineries, the art gallery and a hot spring pool just outside Auckland. Duane worked another week at school. One of these days he will write a blog specifically about how that's going, so you can eagerly anticipate that! I got hired on as a casual relief worker in preschools. So far I work this coming Tuesday and Wednesday and I hope to get more shifts as I get to know some of the centres. I also enjoyed dealing with not one but two [View Full Entry]

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Does anyone remember the card game Mille Bornes, the one where you get flat tires, speed limits, breakdown etc..? If you don't remember this game, then perhaps you may have played The Game of Life? Lately we've been joking that we feel like we have been living in one of these games.... We've had some rough luck and good luck in Auckland. We were parked in a mall parking lot in which looked like a rougher area South of Auckland. For the mothers out there, not the kind of rough where safety is a concern. We were writing our last blog, [View Full Entry]

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We left off our last adventure with the exciting prospect of spending some wonderful days in an orchard picking cherries. Well it turned out great for seeing and experiencing someting new, but horribly as for making any cash. We worked it out that we got paid $4.80/hr Canadian, which is under minimum wage in any province. Partially we were slow pickers (only put 3 days under our belts so we were still rookies), partially they were near the end of the season for cherries and we were assigned to some of the "less-fruitful" trees. Ultimately our decision to throw in the [View Full Entry]

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