3/18/15. L. A.

We arrived at LAX this morning and experienced long lines at customs and immigration.  We finally got to our hotel and have just come back from lunch.  We will have an early dinner tonight since we will have to get up at 3:30 AM to catch our flights to Philly and then Providence.  We are a bit bleary-eyed and look forward to sleeping in our own bed tomorrow night.

3/17/15. The Papa National Museum

We had a wonderful tour of the museum (an overview) and then went in to see a cute movie that took place in an old junk shop.  As the movie went through the years of European occupation, various objects in the shop were highlighted or came to life - player piano, etc.  After the film, we went to the cafe for a quick bite.  Dave went back for a nap and I continued to enjoy the museum.  I then decided to ride the cable car up to the botanical gardens (John and Lana had gone there straightaway from the cafe).  I walked through the gardens and took pix of many of the flowers.  I walked to the city center past the Parliament building (bee hive) and now I will put my feet up for an hour before getting ready for dinner.

3/17/15. Wellington

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We spent some time yesterday afternoon re-packing our suitcases, which had gotten a bit shuffled over the last few weeks.  We did walk around the corner to the Green a Parrot for dinner.  It was still raining and very windy.  Dinner was very good.  John and I had fish and Dave and Lana had scallops.  We came back for some quiet reading time and then sleep.

Today we are walking to the national museum and then have the afternoon free.  I'm not sure what we should do as it is weather dependent.  While it is not raining yet, the skies are cloudy and it is again very windy.  We will see how it looks after the museum tour.  We have our farewell dinner tonight and tomorrow we leave for the airport at 4:30 AM.  We will fly to Sydney, Australia and then on to L.A.  We will stay overnight there before flying home the next day.  We keep hoping that the snow will be gone when we get home, but have heard from Amy and Susanne that while it is melting, it will not be completely gone.  We look forward to catching up with family and friends on our return.

3/16/15 Wellington

We had a city tour this morning and stopped at Weta Cave.  This is the area where The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and The Hobbit were filmed.  The filmmakers have their production buildings here and we saw a behind the scenes film showing how the films were made including characters like Golum and all of the armor for the Lord of the Rings.  It was quite fascinating.  We then stopped at the Roxy Theatre - an art deco theater which has been restored.  We continued on our tour and went by the parliament building which looks like a giant bee hive.  We have the rest of the day to ourselves, but it is pouring out (remnants of the cyclone that blew through yesterday).  We went for lunch at Ombra (Lana had read about it in Sky magazine on the plane) and then walked back stopping in a few interesting shops on the way back to the hotel.  We are thinking of going to The Green Parrot for dinner later tonight.  It seems hard to believe that our trip is almost over.  We have just one more day here and then will fly back to Australia and then to Los Angeles.  We should be home on Thursday.

3/15/15 Greymouth to Christchurch to Wellington

Today we are headed to Christchurch to fly over to the North Island again.  We stopped at Flock Sheep Station for a great visit to a sheep farm.  He has 36,000 acres and raises both sheep and cattle.  We were so lucky because today they were crutching the sheep - shearing around their faces and backsides.  We also got to see the dogs at work with the sheep.  There is a head dog who runs to the front of the flock and heads them in the desired direction.  The other dogs are barkers and push the flock from the back.  Each dog has a particular whistle and the directions can change depending on the tone and length of the whistle commands.  It was fascinating.  We stopped along the way for lunch and over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch.  This city was heavily damaged in a 2010 earthquake.  The aftershocks lasted for 18 months and the rebuilding is continuing to this day.  Our first stop was to the Anarctic Center where we got to see the little blue penguins.  They are all rescue animals - very small and cute.  We then boarded our plane and headed to Wellington on the north island.  We had enough time to have a quick bite to eat and then went out to Zealandia for a night walk.  It was a magnificent night.  We saw kiwi, glow worms, takahe (a purple chicken), kaka (parrots), tuatara (lizards), kerero (wood pigeons), ducks, eels, and an owl.  We had red flashlights to use on the path and had to stop and listen for the kiwi as they generally don't make a noise, but do rustle as they move through the brush.

3/14/15 Greymouth

Happy Pi Day (3.1415)!

We took a coach ride to the gold mining town of Reefton.  We had a guided tour of the museum and then came back to town for billy tea and scones at The Bearded Miners.  The mayor of the town took us for a walk around the town and we ended up at the Odd Fellows Hall,  We sat in the dark hall with just two candles for illumination before he turned on the lights.  He was showing us how dark it was in the houses before electricity came to town.  They were one of the first to have it in every house. He then went around and asked us to say one odd thing about ourselves.  He turned everyone's oddness into a positive - he was very quick to do so and we were amazed at how well spoken he was.  The best odd thing was that Ted, who is a retired policeman, was a pornography expert and was often called upon to testify in court.  We had lunch in town and then drove out to the beach where we had a lovely long walk on the bluffs.  We started at the lighthouse and walked along the bluff until we could see the fur seals playing in the water below us.  The path was steep and gravely and I took a tumble at one point and turned my ankle.  Fortunately, I didn't break anything and was able to continue walking to the car park.  We had dinner in the hotel dining room and Rhonda gave me an ice pack to put on my ankle.

3/13/15 Fox Glacier to Greymough

The majority of of group were planning a helicopter ride and walk on the glacier this morning, but the weather was rainy and quite cloudy so it was cancelled.  We drove up to Franz Joseph Glacier Valley and took a lovely long walk in the rain to see the glacier.  It is much smaller than what we saw in 2007.  I would say that it had receded at least a quarter of a mile.  We had a local guide for the walk and he was very knowledgeable about the area and glaciers in general.  We got a bit soaked, but it didn't take too long to dry out.  We had lunch in town aftr the walk and then continued on to Hokitika, home of the pounamu (New Zealand jade).  We watch some of the carvers at work and then admired the lovely pieced in the shops.  We then continued to Greymouth where we had dinner in the hotel.  Lana and I had brought extra school supplies thinking that we would have a school visit in NZ,  We decided to give the extra supplies to Rhonda, our waitress, as she has two little girls, 6 1/2 and 4 1/2.

3/12/15 Queenstown to Fox Glacier

Have been having a terrible time with the internet so have a few days of catch up now that I have service again - we will see how far I can get.

We left Queenstown and headed out of town to see the world famous first ever Al Hackett bungy jump.  No one in our group of senior citizens wanted to participate so we all watched as others took the plunge.  One couple who were getting married on Saturday did a tandem jump.  A few of our group did go on the zip line.  We stopped at a fruit market and then at a winery.  When Kate and William were visiting New Zealand, they stopped at this winery, Arrum Wines.  We stopped for lunch at a seaside town and bought some food to feed the fish and eels, but the ducks got the bounty as the fish and eels were no where to be seen.  On our way out of town we picked up a Buddhist monk who was walking to Fox Glacier.  We were happy to give him a ride.  He was an interesting young man - originally from the Boston area, Amesbury.  I didn't realize that they don't carry money, but rely solely on the charity of strangers.  They only eat once a day and stand around with their bowls each morning, hoping for donations. We stopped at a Mom and Pop stand to sample white bait fritters (I didn't try it as the white bait is an immature fish that looks like a worm).  Those who did try it, said it was mild.  We stopped along the way to have a nice walk in the rain forest where we heard and saw tui birds also known as fantails.  We arrive at our hotel in Fox Glacier and had an included dinner.

3/11/15 Queenstown

We had a free morning so after breakfast, we walked downtown to the grocery store to pick up a few snacks for lunch.  We ate out on our balcony and enjoyed the sunshine.  At 12:30, we were picked up by coach and driven to Glenorkey to board the Dart River jet boats.  They race along the Dart River and can run in only 6 inches of water.  We did a few spins and then had a glorious ride along the river with majestic mountains on both sides of the boat.  Lana was a bit scared at first, but she soon loosened up and I heard her laughing behind me several times although I think she had her eyes shut most of the time. Our driver was wonderful and really gave us a good ride.  We stopped for photos at several places - each more beautiful than the next.  The Dart River is called a braided river as there are many branches flowing across the rocky bottom.  Our driver must make sudden decisions about which braid to follow so sometimes the boat took sharp turns - a lot of fun.  The river changes hugely after a big rain and can fill up the whole valley, but it drains back down to the braids in just 36 hours.  They used to go a bit further down the river, but last January there was an enormous rock slide which went right across the river bed and blocked access to the boats.  It caused the river to dam up and now there is a 2 1/2 mile lake on the other side of the rockfall.  We went halfway back and were picked up by a bus that traveled along the (mostly dry) river bed.  We stopped for a walk through the forest and took turns sitting in a hobbit chair from the movie, which had been moved there.  Much of the local area was used in "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" movies.  It is quite beautiful country.  We got back to town just after 6 and went back to the Ballarat restaurant for fish and chips.  Some of the group went for burgers at Fergburger (famous in Queenstown), but I didn't feel like standing in line for a burger.  We tried to walk off our dinner by walking back up the hill to the hotel, but I don't think we expended enough calories.  Tomorrow we have another long coach ride and we will have new things to see along the way.

3/10/15 Milford Sound

We had a really long day today!  We boarded our coach for the five hour ride to Milford Sound.  We stopped along the way for potty stops and views.  This area is a national park that is larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite put together!  It is mountainous and in a cold, temperate rainforest - very beautiful.  The weather was sunny to drizzly to rainy.  Apparently, this area has rain 200+ days of the year.  We saw kea parrots outside of the tunnel, but were unable to stop the bus there to take pictures.  They are big and quite colorful as well as smart and sassy.  They like to chew on windshield wipers and rubber gaskets so the drivers tend to chase them off.  We got to Milford Sound in time to board our ship for a two-hour tour of the sound and into the sea.  It was quite drizzly, but I found a place with a bit of cover outside to take some pix of the many waterfalls in the area.  Most of the falls are taller than Niagara Falls, but quite skinny rather than wide.  We had a box lunch on the ship and a great ride.  When we got back, we stopped at the chasm, which is a wonderful spot where the rushing water has carved holes and curves into the rocks.  The ferns grow so tall in this region that I thought I might have been on the set of Jurassic Park.  We had a rest stop and a bubblegum blowing contest at one point and then continued on our way.  Di put "The World's Fastest Indian" on the TV.  I love that movie and it turned out that our young bus driver, Hamish, is related to the main character, Burt Munro!  Burt is his grandfather's cousin.  Burt died before Hamish was born, but he grew up with all the stories and actually got to sit on the famous Indian motorcycle!  It was almost 9 PM by the time we got back to town, so we decided to have a small meal from the bar menu of the hotel before going to bed.

3/9/15 Rotorua to Queenstown

We had another travel day today.  We got to the airport and did not have to go through any security at all.  It felt strange to just walk to the terminal and then out onto the tarmac to the plane.  We had a nice flight to Christchurch, where we had to disembark for about five minutes and then re-board the same plane - this time with different seats!  The tour used to stay in Christchurch, but the town is still recovering from the earthquake they experience about two years ago.  We then had a short flight to Queenstown.  We were picked up by coach and taken to the small gold mining town of Arrowtown.  We caught a small lunch and then just had a poke into some of the small shops on the only street in town.  It was about 3 PM when we finally got to our hotel, which is on a hill just outside of town.  We walked down the hill - magnificent views and poked around for a while.  It was a beautiful day so we found a bench at the waterfront and watch the people, boats, gulls and ducks.  There was a car display on the green behind us so I took a pic of a Maclaren and a Boxter for the car nuts in the grandchild sphere.  We then met up for dinner at The Baccarat restaurant.  The regional manager from Australia and New Zealand, David, had dinner with us.  He was a charming young man and we had a good chat.  We also had a lovely waitress, Christine.  She is originally from Sheffield, England (known for their steel and "The Full Monty") and we had a great time joking with her.  She seemed to side with Lana about the pronunciation of Norwich (an ongoing joke between us) and we had a good laugh!  David very kindly gave us a ride back up the hill (and bought a round of drinks for us) so that we didn't have to walk in the dark.

3/8/15 Waimangu

We got on the coach after breakfast (by the way our driver, Logan, is very informative about the area) and headed to Waimangu volcanic valley.  Our first view was of the mountain, Tarawere, which is a restlessly sleeping volcano, having erupted five times in the last 18,000 years.  In recent history, there was a huge eruption in 1886, which completely destroyed all plant, animal and bird life for miles around.  There was another big eruption in 1900 which resulted in the world's largest geyser, and in 1917 there was an eruption of Frying Pan Flat.  There was loss of life in each of the eruptions, but the worst was the one in 1886 which completely destroyed several Maori villages.  We took a lovely long walk with our local guide, Steve, who also pointed out native plants and birds.  We had to stay on the path as just off the path was just a thin crust in spots.  Steve put a probe in the ground next to the path and it measured 212 degrees.  He said that last year a new guide stupidly stepped off the path into the bush to take a leak and crashed through the crust.  He got burned quite badly on his leg.  My favorite part of the walk was climbing up stairs to get a great view of Inferno Crater Lake.  The water is a pale blue and is covered in steam.  The water temperature can reach 180 degrees.  At the end of the walk we took a boat ride around Lake Rotomahana.  Many hot springs discharge into the lake and we saw large groups of native ducks, scoots, and lots of black swans.  We also saw a hawk overhead who was  looking for fish.  There used to be white and pink terraces formed by silica from the hot waters flowing into the lake and rising for up to 85 feet, but they were destroyed in the 1886 eruption.  We took a bus back to the visitor center and had lunch in the cafe.  Lana and I elected to be dropped off in time to poke around, but as it was Sunday, most of the shops were closed.  We walked back to the hotel and will go out again for dinner soon.  Tomorrow we leave here and will head to the south island of NZ.  Sorry about not putting any pix on lately, but the space on the ipad is full and I have not had enough time to send then to the cloud to make more room.  I will have to come up with a faster way to get the pictures on the blog.

3/7/15 Auckland to Rotorua

We hopped on the coach after breakfast and were on our way to Rotorua.  We stopped off at Hamilton Gardens and had a 45 minute stroll in the gardens.  There were so many different types: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, English Country, herb, contemporary, Italian Renaissance.  We had a lovely walk and took pictures.  Our next stop was to an organic farm where we had a home-hosted lunch.  Our hosts were a lovely couple who have a herd of dairy cows.  Their youngest son has taken over most of the day to day operation of the farm now, but they both still help in the busy times.  The cows are milked twice a day, twelve at a time.  Apparently they line up in some sort of pecking order to be milked and woe to the cow who tries to cut in line!  The milking process takes 2 hours each time.  Quite a commitment.  The lunch was lovely, a variety of sandwiches, homemade mini-quiches, blueberry muffins, watermelon, barley-lemonade, and apricot cake for dessert.  The cows are grass fed and we heard about the rotation of the fields which takes a month to repeat.  There were many flowers, bushes and fruit trees around the farm house - lemon, persimmon, mandarin orange, sour apple.  We had a lovely time, but eventually had to board the coach for the rest of our journey.  Rotorua is a volcanic area and we passed many dormant fumerols along the way.  Our hotel is just a ten minute walk from town.  Lana and I did laundry before dinner - very nice as the machines in the hotel are free to guests.  We had dinner as a group in the hotel dining room and then went to bed.  The rooms here are very nice and big.  We have a patio overlooking a horse racing track and a separate room with a jacuzzi tub.  Tomorrow we will go to see the volcano.

3/6/15 Auckland, New Zealand

We had an early wake-up call this morning and after breakfast, walked down the street to catch a local bus to the Auckland Museum.  We were met by a local Maori guide, Prince Davis, who was very interesting and explained much of the Maori culture to us.  We were given the traditional Maori greeting which consists of standing forehead and nose together while clasping shoulders.  This is done twice while saying Kia Ora (pronounced key-aura), the typical Maori greeting.  He walked us around the gardens and pointed out many of the ferns and trees that were native as well as some stories from his youth - a very interesting man.  We ended up in a treed area where his wife, Cathie, was waiting with tea and refreshments of grapes, cheese and crackers, and ginger cookies.  They were quite a lovely couple.  As we got back to town, some of the group elected to take a ferry ride around the harbor, but since it was spitting rain, Dave, John, Lana, Nancy from Minnesota, and I decided to poke around the downtown area.  We found a lovely place for lunch and then did a walk about the Queen Street area.  We had heard there was a craft market down by the waterfront on Friday nights so with maps in hand, we went to look for it.  Dave stopped off at the Maritime Museum and we said we would meet up with him later.  We walked a bit and then I stopped to ask for directions and some ladies pointed up back in the direction we had just come from.  Apparently, there was a footbridge that was not clearly marked on the map which cut out a lot of walking.  The Volvo Ocean Race was in town and there was a lot of hoopla going on about that.  We could not seem to find the market, but finally found a janitor in one of the buildings in the area who said there is generally one there on Fridays, but not tonight.  We saw a huge ship down the way and stopped to look at it.  It must have been 350 feet long and 75 feet tall - it hailed from Georgetown, Bermuda.  On our way back over the bridge, we stopped to asked someone about it and learned that it is owned by a Russian who owns a vodka company.  He only uses it 17 days of the year - what a waste!  We stopped into one of the Volvo tents and watched two short movies about the Around the World race.  The people who do this are more than slightly nuts!  There were pictures of men almost being washed overboard, covered in ice, etc.  In one clip, a ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of Africa and were lucky to be alive.  I stopped into a grocery store on the way back to the hotel and bought bananas for dinner as I was still full from lunch.  When I got back to the room, I found that Dave had not had any luck either as he got to the Museum just a half hour before closing so didn't go in.  We got our bags ready for the move tomorrow and then read before going to sleep.  The internet here is sketchy at best so have delayed the blog.

3/5/15 Sydney to Auckland

Today was a travel day.  We got up early to get to the airport outside of the city.  We left Louise at security, but just by happenstance, we got Bruce as his flight was delayed.  He walked us through customs and then we lost him as he was traveling on a different airline.  We had a nice flight into Auckland where we were met by our Kiwi guide, Di.  My bag was searched as they thought they saw candy on the x-ray (and they are very strict here about bringing in any food, seeds, etc.), but it was my laundry pods that they had spotted.  It was a good thing as we heard later that a man from the last group that came through from Australia had forgotten that he had an apple in his backpack and he had to pay a $400 fine!  Despite the security search, Dave and I must have gone through the VIP line at passport control as we met Di and waited at least a half hour before anyone else from the group got through.  We took the coach to our hotel in Auckland, had a few minutes to freshen up and then took a coach down to the waterfront to have dinner.  The dinner was very good, but the service was extremely slow so we lost the time for our coach to pick us up and most of us elected to walk back to the hotel since it was a pleasant evening (a couple of them took a cab).  Brian, Di's boyfriend, joined us for dinner and he walked back with us.  We stopped on the way to exchange some currency at an ATM.

3/4/15 Sydney

We had a lovely day today.  We started by walking to the Maritime Museum.  The "boys" enjoyed going through the ships on exhibit outdoors, while the girls went through the exhibits inside.  My favorite was a display of x-rays of a variety of fish - very interesting.  We took a local ferry (transportation tickets given to us by Louise) to Circular Quay, where we enjoyed lunch at the same food court we ate in yesterday.  We walked over to the Museum of Sydney - it was okay, but nothing to write home about and then walked down to the Queen Victoria Building.  It is a shopping arcade, but we were mainly interested in the lovely and massive clocks hanging from the ceiling of the third level. We then walked back to the hotel to put our feet up before dinner.  This is our farewell dinner in Australia and we will say our goodbyes to Louise as we will only see her briefly tomorrow when she puts us on the plane to New Zealand.  It has been a lovely two weeks here.  We have seen some new things and enjoyed anew some of our favorites from our last trip here in 2007.  I am hoping we have better internet connection at the next hotel so I can put some more pictures up.

3/3/15 Sydney

We had a very full day today.  We picked up our laundry after breakfast and although it had been washed and dried, I would not say it was folded properly.  I had to refold and hope that some of the wrinkles fall out - oh, well, at least we will be clean.  We left the hotel at 8 AM for a sightseeing tour by coach.  We visited The Rocks, which is the site of the first settlement here, and then drove around the coast stopping at various places to walk a bit.  We went to the famous Bondi Beach, where we watched the surfers and dipped our feet in the Tasman Sea.  We came back to the harbor area and went to Altmann and Cherny for a talk about opals by the granddaughter of the first owner of the company.  She explained the different mining styles and differences between the various opals.  We then walked across the street and took the elevator to the 39th floor where Bruce has his office.  The view from the conference room was amazing!  The windows look over the harbor and we could see both the bridge and the opera house.  I don't know how anyone can get any work done with that view. The Queen Elizabeth ocean liner was in port and was a massive ship.  We ate lunch in the food court of his building.  We then took a harbor cruise and saw many of the places we had been to in the morning, but this time from the sea.  We came back to Circular Quay and then went for a tour of the opera house.  The tour guide was delightful and gave a great talk about the history and building of this wonderful building.  It was quite the story as the design had been originally rejected and the estimates for completion were way off.  It took 10 years more to complete than originally thought and was millions of dollars over budget.  Some of the group were going to the opera, but the six of us who were not ate dinner together at the side of the opera house and then walked back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is a free day until dinner time so we will see if we can fit in all that we have planned.

3/2/15 Port Douglas to Sydney

Today was a travel day so right after breakfast, we boarded the coach for the hour trip to Cairns.  This time we could see the sugar cane fields and the coast that we had traveled along in the dark the other day.  We had a coach trip around Cairns, which looks like a nice seaside city, before going to the airport.  We had a two and a half hour flight, dropped our things in our room and then headed en masse to the laundry down the street.  It was $10 a bag - wash, dry, and fold.  We will pick it up tomorrow morning.  We were told there was no laundry in the first hotel in New Zealand so wanted to make sure we had some clean clothes.  We then met Louise's husband, Bruce, back at the hotel and all went for an orientation walk around this side of the city.  We are about a kilometer from the harbor.  We ended up across the street from the hotel where we had a nice dinner.  We don't have unlimited access to the internet here so I will be unable to download pictures for a while.