After the nice weather on our driving day, it rained again last night! Fortunately, it had stopped by the morning and left the sky with scattered clouds. Suzy went for a walk on the beach early and upon her return we formulated a plan for the day. The proprietor of our accommodations told us that low tide wasn't until 4PM, so that gave us most of the day before we could access the hot water on the beach. This unique area spends most of the day submerged and is only exposed at about 2 hours on either side of low tide. We drove north to the "town" of Hahei, a few kilometers to the north. There wasn't much to it, so we kept going north and found a trailhead to a couple of bays. We took ... read more

On our final day in the Northland region, we headed to the west to the Waipoua Kauri Forest. The kauri is a pine-bearing tree that goes through remarkable changes in its stages in life. It starts off looking like a normal pine tree. As it matures in its middle age, the trunk widens (I can't relate to this mid-section widening during middle age) and the top thins out. The giants in this forest, that escaped logging have spread to boast vast cylindrical trunks that measure up to 14 meters. The drive to the forest's visitor center took us about 2 1/2 hours. Gertrude prefers to take us off the state highways (which are nearly all just single-laned winding roads with occasional straight-aways). On this particular jaunt, she led us through vast farmland with occasional thick forest. ... read more

The weather was wet and wild last night! The water collection system was well feed through the early hours of the night. After the rain let up, the wind came in and tested the resolve of the house's shutters. The scampering of feet echoed through the house under the cover of pre-dawn darkness. After it persisted, I decided to go downstairs and assess the damage. The kitchen presented a surprising scene - all three kids preparing a breakfast of eggs, toast and crumpets! I was outright shocked to see Ivy in the fray. This pleasant sight was followed by another. Upon heading outside to check out the view and undo the shutters, the wind had subsided and the stormy weather had given way to relatively calm skies. I hope it holds out! Thanks to the breakfast ... read more

We're here! We made it through customs (they even let me in) with only a minor ding for Ivy trying to smuggle in an apple from the airplane. A fruit-sniffing dog went nuts over her backpack. After we got the rental car, we survived my driving on the left for the first time. We got to our apartment along the Port in Auckland where we are staying just for one night. Fighting off the urge to nap, we headed west to check out the Waitakere Range Regional Park, a coastal rain forest. The drive toward the park was relatively uneventful, but the signage to the visitor center was not to be found. Also, on more than one occasion we thought we were following signs only to find a fork with no indication as to what direction ... read more

This is a test of our blog site where we hope to have updates of our family trip to New Zealand & Australia. We take off tomorrow and will likely start by getting a rental car at LAX and going to the beach for 3-4 hours to get some exercise in prior to sitting on the long flight to Auckland The pictures above were taken after the Neal Morse Band show in Denver on May 25th. The band lead by Prog Rock genius Neal Morse who was backed by Randy George on the bass and the amazing Mike Portnoy on drums. They had an excellent father-son duet on guitar (the father also played violin & flute, the son played cello and sang some back-up as well), two other keyboard players, a saxophone player/percussionist and a guest ... read more