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 a short walk we hooked up to a Flying Fox (also known a a zip line) for a fast ride in the dark, dark except for the glow worms. Anne didn't see the glow worms, ... read more

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 Rotorua we checked into our B&B. It's pretty close to town and the hosts are very friendly and helpful. The rooms are very nice and they even have thier own thermal pool. The whole area ... read more

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 CD... odd). no presets, no scan. Not that radio stations are very powerful in NZ. A 4 hour drive up the east coast put us into a very nice Bed and Breakfast in Napier, right ... read more

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 and Salvins Albatross, Petrels, Shearwaters, Shags, Terns, Gulls, a Gannet and a couple of Reef Herons that looked to be setting up a nest. We also saw some New Zealand fur seals and a pod ... read more

Today we got a late start and wandered around Canturbury College and Christchurch City Center. Anne's brother, Matt, asked us to check out the college and the city to see if it would be somewhere he would be interested in teaching after he finishes his Ph.D at Georgia Tech. The college was a typical college built in the early 90s...lots of concrete and glass. there were some very nice gardens and courtyards for students to gather. The college used to be in the city center in some wonderful old buildings from the 1870s. Those buildings are now an art center for the city. The city has a lot of culture and activities (shopping, clubing, shopping, theater, shopping, etc) in the city center and there are a lot of other things to do in the surrounding area ... read more