Well, we made it to Halifax. We did take a slow route. Sacramento to Denver. Then Denver to Chicago. We only had a 51 minute layover in Chicago and our plane from Denver was late. When we landed in Chicago, we had 15 minutes to get to our plane to Halifax. We landed on the farthest runway from the terminal and parked at the farthest gate from the runway. Then we had to run past 10 gates, go thru a long hallway to the next building and up to gate 6, where they told us we needed to go to the next building and gate 25. I ran ahead and everyone was already on the plane except us. We had to wait for Stacy. When we got to Halifax I got a text that one of ... read more

We got up this morning after a glorious sleep. We got to sleep in late. We had breakfast and finished our packing. I went for a nice 2 mile walk and we caught our shuttle to the airport. Ok here is the flight list. 3:30 PM, we left Queenstown and headed northwest to Sydney, Australia. Flight length 3 hours. Then we boarded a flight south to Melbourne. Flight length 2 hours. Then we boarded a flight to San Francisco. Flight length 13 hours. Then we had a 4 hour layover in San Francisco. Then on to a plane to Sacramento. Flight length 30 minutes. Then a cab home. We arrived at home at 1:00 AM on Dec. 2nd. We were dead tired. We locked the front door, dropped out of our clothes and went straight to ... read more

We spent the night in an eco lodge in Franz Josef. It was a very nice place. The rain forest was literally out on our back patio. Its weird. there are not very many animals out here. No large mammals, mostly small animals and a lot of birds. They did mess up the ecology, though. Kiwi birds are flightless and raise their young in burrows. The Europeans introduced rabbits for food and fur. Soon there were too many rabbits, so they introduced Skotes, which are like Ferrets, only a little smaller. The idea was that they would get the rabbits and control the population. But the Skotes figured out that the baby Kiwis were easier to catch than the rabbits, so they ate them almost to extinction. They are now an endangered species. So, the next ... read more

Well, it did it again. 250 words down the drain. Have to start all over again. Our flight to Auckland was about 2 1/2 hours. We were met by our new tour director, Marty, and taken to our hotel. We had another meet and greet to meet the new people on our bus. There were 34 of us in Australia, but only 20 went on to New Zealand. So we picked up another tour, plus about 8 people who were just doing New Zealand only. So now we have 47 people on a bus designed for 48. Takes longer to load and unload. The first morning, we did a bus tour of Auckland and then we went on a 90 minute cruise around Waitemata Harbor. We had free time in the afternoon, so we did our ... read more

Up early again, breakfast and then a short walk to the boat that would take us out to the Great Barrier Reef. I took my trusty Bonine before we left and didn't have any problems with the boat ride. The boat took us out about 35 miles, stopping at an island to let some people off. Then it was over to the reef. They have a huge floating platform anchored at the edge of the reef. They have a semi submersible sub and glass bottomed boats for those who didn't want to go into the shark infested waters. Stacy was one of them. I though donned my Lycra suit, got my snorkeling gear and headed into the water. I did always make sure there was someone farther away from the boat than me. I forgot to ... read more