We are home!

It only took 36+ hours of time, but we made it.  Any airplane flight shorter than 5 hours is going to be a breeze from now on!   As you will see from the photos below, we spent a great part of those 36 hours sitting, sitting, sitting.  I'm not really complaining, the trip with our friends and the sites we saw were soooooooo worth it. Truly a trip that will be remembered for a lifetime.

This is in the Melbourne airport.  We were supposed to go to Sydney, but the morning of our flight, at the Auckland airport, we were informed that our flight had been changed to another airline and a different destination!  Luckily, we still had a flight to LA that was about the same time as our previous one.

Stilll sitting in Melbourne.  They kept making us move to a different area of seating - said they were doing "security" checks.  Dave wanted to start a revolt, but he didn't get much of a following.

Waiting for a flight out of LAX to San Francisco. No, we aren't tired! The really great thing about being in LA was that Laura and her boyfriend, Justin, drove up from San Diego to see us! It also happened to be her birthday so I got to say 'Happy Birthday' in person.

One last beer in SFO.  What a great group of friends we have. Thanks to all who have followed our adventures and joined in the fun.

Cheers!

Our last day in New Zealand

We are here in Auckland again, with Don and Amy, getting ready for our 7am flight tomorrow morning.  We all had a nice dinner together and caught up with each other on all of our different adventures. Part of me can't believe we leaving tomorrow, but another part is kind of tired of living out of a suitcase. It will be good to be home again.

Here are just a few more pics.

Beautiful green hills of Matamata.

Bay of Islands sparkling in the sunshine.

This is our faithful rental Rav4 that took us over 1600km (that's 1200 miles) of New Zealand roads. 

And here is a final "Cheers" from the three amigos to all of our blog followers. It's been a fantastic trip and part of the fun was sharing the experience with our friends and family. We'll do a final post after we get home.

We are winding down our travels

First off, we are OK.  I'm not sure if you heard about the very large, destructive earthquake in Christ Church, which is on the south island.  The TV scenes from there look very bad, but we did not feel it at all where we are on the north island.

We had a day of driving yesterday and spent the night in Rotorura.  There is a lot of Mauori history and culture there and a LOT of thermal sulphur springs activity.  And I do mean SULPHUR!

This is what the countryside looks like around the Hobbitton tour site.

Just had to include this totally random picture from a place called "The Swinging Cow Cafe". Got to love that Kiwi humor.

This was taken in a park in Rotorura. That is steam in the background rising from a very hot, smelly pool of water that bubbles up from the ground

We went on our Hobbitton tour today, but I can't post any pictures from it. They made us sign a non-disclosure statement about posting pictures. (Sorry Joe.) But I do have lots of  pictures from there that I can show you later. It was really neat - lots of hobbit holes, only seen from the outside, but fun stuff.  More later...

Special birthday message for Ryker

Hi Ryker!  Grandma and Grandpa are sending lots of love, hugs and kisses for your 1st birthday. We may be far away but we are thinking of you and we will see you soon.  A super special 'Hello' to Connor from us too. 

Here we are with our feet in the Tasman Sea on the west side of New Zealand.  The sand was black was hot and the water was warm. Happy Birthday Ryker! We love you.

On the road again...

     Have I mentioned how friendly everyone is here?  They are! People are laid back and totally willing to help us with directions, food, or whatever us weird Americans happen to be asking.  The driving is getting easier, but you still have to think all the time about where you should be and if you turn, where you should end up.  Dave was driving the other day and we had to turn around, and he drove on the "wrong" side for several minutes before Paul and I both said (shouted), "WRONG SIDE".  Needless to say, that doesn't do much for the drivers' nerves, but luckily it was a semi-deserted country road. Whew!  I'm sure there are more driving adventures to come :~).

We had a wonderful dinner here at Petite-Provence B&B.  It is in the country outside a little, little town called Matakoehe on the Tasmin Sea side of the north island.  It is quite beautiful with lots of rolling green hills and water in the background. Pictures will be coming soon.  It is sort of 'Shire-ish', and speaking of that, we have a tour of the Hobbiton movie set coming up tomorrow.  They have refurbished all the sets in readiness for filming "The Hobbit" and only are open to the public through mid-March, when they start filming the new movie. Even the Kiwis say it is very nice. Joe, I promise to take lots of pictures!

Sunflowers in the garden at Petite-Provence B&B. Not a bad view. Many birds singing as well, but can't figure how to get that on the blog...

We are back from our sailing adventure.!

The Bay of Islands is beautiful.  Here is our boat seen from the top of an island that we anchored by.  VERY nice.  We followed our young guide, Tom, who was one of the crew on the boat.  He went barefoot, the rest of us just were short of breath..

Too much gorgeous scenery to even begin to describe. So pictures will have to do for now.

It was just the five of us on the boat as passengers. Eva and Alex were from Germany. There were also two crew members, Tom (a Kiwi), Marte (from Spain) and John the captain. Marte actually has been to Corvallis.  She and Tom are marine studies students here in NZ, but she has friends and had been to OSU.  It truly is a small world.

Paul was making sure we were going in the right direction.

Dave and I on a windy sailing day on the bow.

Sunset with Turtle Island in the background.

Moonrise on the same night.

Paul and I working hard.

Here we are at our B&B tonight in Manatake. Had to drive for a couple of hours after getting off the boat.  We are tired but happy.  More later.  Tomorrow we head to Rotura.

In the Northland

Tonight we are with Don and Amy in Kerikeri.  We went out for a wonderful dinner and plan just to hang out tomorrow.

Here are a few more pictures from Waiheke Island.

Hey Richard! We didn't have time to play, but we thought of you.

Lining up the shot (I guess).

For this dinner, Paul cooked the fish on the grill, I made the salad and Dave cooked the fresh corn on the cob. Got to love summer!

Scott, look what we found on the island (below).  I'm sure you'd love to play disc golf on this course.