Rita's Bed and Breakfast Wellington

... After that drama we boarded the big green bus (which has another nickname of which I cannot speak in such a public domain) and started our trip with Kiwi Experience. We met another amaaazing British couple in Fiji, Matt and Lisa, and decided to do the Kiwi tour so we could all travel together and I am soo glad we did!

We first headed North to the Bay of Islands and had the best day just hiking around, taking jumping shots on the tops of mountains overlooking ...

So, we made it to Wellington. Liz and I had the longest travel day ever on Tuesday but managed to stay chipper and not kill each other on the plane ride. We actually laughed a lot. Mari joined us in LA. She was wearing the cutest little skirt and was making us look bad with our sweaty sweats and greasy hair, but we were just excited to see her so we didn't really care.

Air New Zealand is the best airline there is. We had all this wonderful food and really ...

... gardens. Tulips Tulips everywhere, people in clogs and people eating lotsa funny sounding sausage and pickle herring while oohing and ahhing at tulips. Caught up with friends oh and bought a swimsuit for the well anticipated warm weather across the ditch.
Great way to start the grand trek to OZ!

... be coming back with me. Finally left Northland and headed towards the Coromandel Peninsula but stopped just short of it at Miranda which had its own natural hot springs and pool. It was very relaxing being there and I treated myself to the luxury of being in the one spot for three nights. I have to say I hated the drive to Coromandel town as the roads were very narrow, the ocean was only feet away, logging trucks came hurtling round bends towards me and there was the ...

... It is out of control. Then that same bar / restaurant had a live band that was pretty good and we danced for a long time. I talked to this one boy from Wellington who  told us about some good local spots to go. But it was time to go home at like 2.             Today we woke up really early to have breakfast and orientation stuff. Then it was just killing time until our flight to Auckland. Finally we arrived in Auckland around 430 or so. So by only looking ...

... the following day. Must add, one of the reasons The Villa was so nice, was at 8pm the staff came round calling everybody into the lounge as there was free homemade apple crumble and icecream, which we thought was and excellent idea;-} So, up very early Tuesday, got picked up by Greg to commence the main physical activity we had planned here in NZ, The Queen Charlotte Track; a 71km long walk over 4 days. Mored on that and our very sore legs in next blog.... XX L&M

... tide and were pulled into shore where we beached and the waves dumped huge amount of water into the kayaks and we were soaked but got out of the kayaks and were able to get back out to sea.  We rowed all the way around the bay it took just under two hours.  After that we went to lunch at Mac's again and then headed back to the house and got ready for shopping.  On Friday the shops stay open late to ...

L ile du Nord est petite mais remplie des choses merveilleuses et diversifies a visiter. Nous avons debute notre sejour en Nouvelle-Zelande en arrivant a Auckland (plus grande ville du pays) un vendredi matin pluvieux. En moins de trois heures nous sommes donc passe du rythme tranquille et relax des FIJIS a une ville en pleine action qui ressemble etrangement a Vancouver mais encore plus asiatique. Heureusement Auckland etait ...

... on the beach to entertain us. After watching these penguins for awhile, we walked back up to the cliffs and decided to walk along the fence line for a bit. The fence was there to prevent humans from going onto the penguins land. But it did not prevent the many rabbits and the feral cat we saw that unfortunately was probably eating the young and weak birds. Along the fence line we soon saw 4 penguins, 2 young ones and 2 older ones. There ...

... br>Went to Paua World and got necklace for Mom. Got to see how they made the shells and stuff
Tui bird (didn't say "Tui" even though I wanted it to)
Mike fixed my suitcase strap using the band of his shorts
Went to a couple of Mike's classes. The bioethics one was funny. People had a very skewed idea of scientists. They thought that we were out of touch with the world because we were always in the lab and didn't have ...