Today was a day to relax before we head home tomorrow. We found out that when you are not traveling at the height of tourist season, shops that cater to tourists do not open on Mondays. Breakfast was a collection of pastries and sausage rolls from a bakery in town before checking out and heading to the beaches. We managed to visit both the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea today, just to check out the differences. Both beaches were pretty flat with lots of sea shells and very little else. No seaweed and no creatures in the tide pools. We [View Full Entry]

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Today we left Waitomo Caves for the Northland. We originally wanted to spend more time in this area since it's supposed to have the best beaches in all of New Zealand. Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated with us, it's been cloudy with periods of rain for the last few days and looks like it will continue. We'll visit the beaches tommorow but I don't think we'll be laying out in the sun. Our first stop today through is Sheep World. This visit has been high on Anne's list since we started looking into the trip. Where else in New Zealand [View Full Entry]

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Today's the day, our Blackwater rafting trip. 5 hours of caves, underground rivers, and innertubes. It started with an introduction to the trip and getting fitted out with Wetsuits, gumboots, helmets and harnesses. Next we headed out to the start of our trek to pratice repeling. Next we repeled 35 meters down in to the caves. The trip down started with 5 m out in space then a tight fit through the cave opening. Then it was ~25 m down the cave wall to a platform. Anne went first, then Tony, two other people on the tour, and then Chris. After [View Full Entry]

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Today we started off with another yummy B&B breakfast and then headed out to the Skyline Gondolas to ride the luge. We took an intial ride down the 2 km scenic route and then headed for the intermediate track. The Scenic route was very bumpy but Hamster got to ride along. The Intermidiate track was much faster and much smoother. Tony and Chris made Anne go last since she kept slowing down. there were lots of nice banks and speedy parts. From there we debated checking out "New Zealand's Largest 3D Maze" but we passed. Tony and Chris went golfing (increadibly [View Full Entry]

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Today we started the morning with a another great breakfast at the Seaview B&B (we're learning to really enjoy muselli) and then on the road again. Today's trip was relativly short, it was just a few hours from Napier to Rotorua. We even bought a few used CD's (Arlo Guthrie, REO Speedwagon and Fleetwood Mac) to add some music to the trip. Unfortunatly we only got through the first 15min of Alices Resturant when the CD player in the car broke. We were trully bummed and Tony was looking forward to hearing the Pickle song. After the three hour drive to [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a wine tour. We woke up early and had breakfast at our Bed and Breakfast. Our host was fantastic!! Unfortunately, it seems they are auctioning (selling) the business in a month, so we would be unlikely to see her again if we came through. We walked on the beach and collected beach glass. It was very hard to find glass on this beach. Not enough trash 10 years ago, I guess. Tony was VERY happy to be in Napier. For those who don't know... Tony played a Dungeons and Dragons character for 4 years named Napier. It was [View Full Entry]

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Today we took an all day Lord of the Rings tour. It was actually quite fun. We went around and saw about 6 or 7 filming locations. The tour guide was quite knowledgable about LOTR and Wellington. We went on another swing bridge right near Rivendell. This one was shorter, but older.. it swung quite a bit and bounced a lot too. After the tour, we traded in our rental car (again) for another Mazda. The only thing wrong with this one so far is that the radio is not a digital tuner (though it is a digital display with a [View Full Entry]

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We've passed the half way point in our trip. Today was dedicated to crossing from Picton on the South Island to Wellington on the North. We took some time in the morning to view some scenery around Picton and then heady for vehicle check-in at 12:15 at the Ferry terminal. After parking the car we haded upstairs to the veiw deck (Deck 8) and proceeded to waste several hours playing cards while the ferry sailed across the channel. The view was great and the water not too rough. After trying to walk across the floor Anne decided that it was best [View Full Entry]

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We drove from Christchurch in the moring towards Kaikoura and Picton. Kaikoura has lots of ocean tours including Swimming with Dolphins and Seal and Albatross viewing. (Monty Python warning....ALBATROSS!) We took an afternoon tour to look at the Albatross. Kaikoura is one of the few places you can see Albatross so close to land. There is a very deep sea trench close to Kaikoura and at night there are lots of squid and other animals that the albatross eat close to the waters surface. We saw lots of birds and animals on the tour. The birds we saw include Wandering, Black-browed [View Full Entry]

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We got a REALLY late start this morning. We took care of a few things before heading out for the day. We all needed to do some laundry and Tony took the rental car to the local brach because the check engine light kept coming on. The rental company exchanged our Subaru for a Mazda, we'll see how that goes. We went to the Antartic Expirence outside of Christchurch this afternoon. They had lots of information about Antartica and a few really neat things to do. They had one room set up to simulate a storm at the main base in [View Full Entry]

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