4 April 2008
Friday

We had breakfast at the hotel, then walked across the street to get our RVs. What with arguing about insurance (we'd been told a much different story by Good Sam than what was real) and filling out forms, it was 1030 before we pulled out of the lot, and we were the second ones to leave! By the time we checked out of the hotel, traded Australian money for New Zealand, and bought groceries, it was 1230 before we officially hit the road.

Roger, Sheila, Janene, & I decided to break off from the rest of the group and drive south on highway 1 to Ngaruawahia, 39 to Otorohanga, then 3 to 37 to Waitomo Caves. The caves are inhabited by glow-worms, which are the larvae of a type of fly. They glow constantly to attract mosquitoes, and only live in a limited number of places in New Zealand. They were pretty awesome - well worth the effort. After the worm tour, we hiked a short distance up to an overlook. We parted company with Roger/Sheila and headed north on highway 34 toward Hamilton then picked up hwy 1 again. We bought fuel at Karapiro and ended up dry camping behind the gas station. 4.24 miles walked.

Auckland Airport		Waitomo Glowworm Caves
Foodtown supermarket		end of cave tour	end of cave tour

Waitomo Walkway & Lookout Point

Janene on Walkway

Lookout Point

Lookout Point

Janene heading down	back through the forest (not pictured on the way up)

Parked on a hill!

(rotated photo)

5 April 2008
Saturday

Hobbiton, Mount Maunganui, Skyline Luge, Maori Welcome Ceremony

Drove into Matamata, then to the nearby site of filming of the Hobbiton scenes for the Lord of the Rings movies. About 17 of the hobbit holes are still there, and the guide spent a lot of time explaining how various shots were set up and filmed. It was fun. After a quick lunch, we drove northwest to Tauranga, then south to Rotorua, where we met up with the rest of the tour group. They'd circled around the Coromandel Peninsula while we were visiting glow-worms and hobbits. I'm pretty sure we made the correct choice. At Tauranga, we drove to Mt. Maunganui, which we wanted to climb, but decided we didn't have enough time to do that and make it to Rotorua in time for the scheduled Mauri feast that night. So we walked on the beach instead and Janene collected a bunch of shells. When we got to Rotorua, we went to the Skyline gondola. At the top of the hill, they have 3 luge tracks, which are concrete paths, down which one rides a little scooter car. We each took 3 rides - it was a blast! We probably would have gone some more, but we needed to get to the RV park. We found the RV park okay and a bus picked everybody up and took us to a re-created Mauri village so we could experience Mauri culture from 200 years ago. The food was decent, and, having been appointed "Chief" of our tribe, I got a little tiki amulet, but, in hindsight, we should have climbed the mountain and skipped the dinner.

105 PHOTOS, 9 VIDEOS

6 April 2008
Sunday

Agrodome Farm, Rainbow Springs Nature Park, Te Puia, country B&B

Today, we took a bus tour of the city, which included a stop at the Agrodome, where a fellow that nobody could hear/understand displayed and explained 15 different breeds of sheep before shearing one for our benefit. They also did a short sheepdog exhibition. Then we went to Rainbow Springs, where we saw a couple of kiwis and a bunch of other critters, and to Te Puia, a thermal area where we viewed a geyser and a lot of hot springs and mud holes. Not Yellowstone, but alright.

We made it back to the park with about 30 minutes to spare before we were picked up for our sleepovers with some of the locals. This was advertised as a Farm Stay, but we, along with Roger, Sheila, and Jack & Connie Byrnes went to Christine Doolan's house. The "farm" consisted of ten acres, housing 4 donkeys and some finches in a cage. But the food was good and we had fun looking at the very different southern stars with Christine, an amateur astronomer. About an acre of the spread was landscaped like an English garden, which was fairly impressive.
2.7 miles walking today.

73 PHOTOS, 5 VIDEOS

7 April 2008
Monday

Huka Falls, Aratiatia Rapids, Lake Rotopounamu

After breakfast, Christine returned us to town and we headed for Taupo. We had to be there by 1040 for a jet-boat ride to see a waterfall. The falls weren't much, and the boat ride was more annoying than entertaining. Live and learn. After escaping the boat, we went to a spot below a dam to watch while the flood gates were opened, creating some impressive rapids. That was better than the boat ride. Before leaving the area, we stopped at a glass studio. We would really like to have some of the bowls and things they had, but our wallets would never stand the strain! We stopped at the RV park so we could claim a good spot and eat a sandwich, then drove south along the lake shore to Lake Rotopounamu, a short distance southwest of Turangi. We took a 6 KM, 1.75-hr hike around the lake, then returned to Taupo. We bought a steak and a few others groceries at the Woolworth's, went to the RV park, and fixed supper. Today's walking - 7 miles.

74 PHOTOS, 2 VIDEOS

8 April 2008
Tuesday

Bought fuel and explored the town a little bit before heading for Napier. Didn't do a lot of sight-seeing along the way, as it was raining off & on; only stopped at a couple of waterfalls and viewpoints. We took a guided walking tour of Napier focused on the local architecture. The town was pretty much destroyed by an earthquake and accompanying fire in 1931, and was rebuilt almost entirely in the Art Deco style. We did a little shopping, located a Laundromat and internet store, and drove up to the Bluff Overlook just before sunset, then returned to our RV park for the night.

[NOTE: Photo marked with ^† was provided by Hal Anderson]

Taupo

RV Park	RV Park	Joe making pancakes
decommissioned DC3 at McDonald's Taupo

To Napier

Waipunga Falls

mountains

foothills

foothills

sheeps (& cattle)

inclement weather

Napier

Opossum World

Nissan retro van

gang at Veronica Sunbay†

The Daily Telegraph

art deco staircase

Art Deco Shop (former Central Fire Station)

Port of Napier

Bluff Hill Lookout

lavender bush

Port map (larger map)

tug boat

container depot

Port of Napier

woodchips & sheds 7-10

9 April 2008
Wednesday

Napier Prison, Mission Estate Winery, Te Ana Falls, Tangoio Falls, Te Mata Peak

Last night, we were successful only in washing clothes at the RV park, so the first order of the day was to dry them. We went to a Laundromat in town, took care of that chore, then took a guided tour of the old prison, which was in use from the late 1800s till 1992. In addition to the tours, it's also used as a backpacker stop - sort of a hostel, which are everywhere here. We finally managed to send and receive email.

The rest of the group was on a bus tour of a bunch of wineries, and we rendezvoused with them for lunch. The meal was pretty good, and sort of fancy, with a lot of BS chatter about wine. The whole thing lasted about an hour and forty minutes. After lunch, we drove back north and hiked to 2 waterfalls at Tangoio Falls Park. We met some locals in the parking lot who raved about a forest just up the road, so we did that one too. It was as advertised, with lots of big trees and little bridges over a brook. We'd decided to bolt from the herd and drive south so that we could drive to Te Mata Peak, a really tall hill (or small mountain) outside of Havelock North. We made the harrowing drive up the paved goat trail and summitted a little before sundown. The views were amazing and there were many hiking trails we would have tried given the time. Once again, we regretted doing the planned activity (lunch), which cost us valuable time. Rather than double back 45 minutes to the RV park, we pressed on south toward Wellington. We bought groceries and fuel in Waipukurau, then drove about 8 km farther on Hwy 2 till we found a suitable picnic area, where we spent the night. Since or RV's heater is electric only, we had no heat, but our thrift-store blankets from Australia saved the day and we survived.

78 PHOTOS

10 April 2008
Thursday

Mountain Pass, "Rivendell" at Kaitoke Park, Dry Creek & Belmont quarries

We arose early so we could stop a lot along the way and still make Wellington before dark. The end of daylight savings a few days ago sure messed things up in that regard. We don't know the exact temp, since our truck just said "Low Temp," but we deduced that it was below 40F. We drove on to Norsewood, a town settled by Scandinavians, where we cooked omelets for breakfast. After looking around the VERY small town, we continued southwest to Dannevirke, another Scandinavian town, but a much larger one. We probably spent an hour wandering around there. We also stopped for a short wander in Woodville, Pahiatua, and Eketahuna, and then stopped at our scheduled event for the day about 1200 hrs. The Mt Bruce National Wildlife Center was a bust. The hikes we've just stumbled upon were much better. We lunched on PB&J sandwiches in a roadside park about 30 minutes past Mt Bruce. We stopped on Masterton and Carterton to look around and check the local Op Shops. A lady in Masterton gave us advice about Lord of the Rings sites in the area. We made a side trip to the Kaitoke Regional Park, which is where the Rivendale scenes were filmed. Nothing remains of the sets, but we met a fellow feeding eels in the stream who takes tours out there and he showed us where things were during filming. We also took a 45-min forest walk that was the best we've been on so far. We also located the quarry where the Isengard scenes were shot. We made it to camp just before dark, fixed stir-fry for supper, downloaded pictures to the laptop, and updated the journal.

71 PHOTOS, 1 VIDEO

11 April 2008
Friday

Civic Square, Cable Car, Lambton Quay, Te Papa museum, Interisland Ferry

Still Joe reporting: The group bus-toured Wellington this morning before forming a convoy for the ferry terminal. We rebels drove to town on our own and met them at the terminal. Before sailing time, we parked our rig at the museum and walked to the downtown area. Wellington is an interesting city. The streets are quite narrow and fairly twisting, and it's built on pretty steep hills, so that the back door of the ground floor of one building overlooks the roof of the building behind it. We found a Vodaphone store and tried to get our cell phone problems corrected, but were told we'd have to call Australia from a pay phone to get international roaming set up. Vodaphone stores are as thick as Starbucks here, so we tried one more. This time, we found a young man who not only knew what to do, but actually cared enough to do it. He called Australia, got a live person on the phone, and got us taken care of. After leaving the phones off for an hour, Janene's phone worked normally. Mine was better, but it still couldn't get a proper signal; guess I'll try again on the south island. While we were waiting for the phone people in Australia to open, we rode a cable car to the top of a big hill, then walked back downtown through the Arboretum. We spent the rest of our spare time window shopping, tourist gawking, and visiting an art museum and the national museum for short whiles. We had lunch in the RV on the ferry dock while awaiting the arrival of the others. The voyage to the south island was quite pleasant. I spent most of the time on the bow, as much of the trip is through what I suppose could be described as fjords. Very scenic, but a little cool and windy and devoid of hoped-for whales and dolphins. We unloaded and drove about 15 minutes to an RV park. The parking spots were quite unlevel, so I scrounged up several armloads of lumber and spent about ½ hour helping level rigs. We dined on canned tuna with avocado and cheese, served on a Ritz crackers.

73 PHOTOS, 1 VIDEO

12 April 2008
Saturday

Joe reporting: We got out of camp early so we could wind our way over the Queen Charlotte Highway to Nelson in time to go to Market Day. The first half of the road was winding and hilly enough to be a challenge - not really able to look and drive at the same time. The scenery is pretty impressive, with small clouds hanging below the mountain tops in the little valleys. From Havelock to Nelson was much better. We walked all around downtown Nelson for about 3 hours, and Janene looked at everything in every booth at the market. We bought a sack of pears. We bought a few groceries at Woolworth's, then ate a sandwich at the RV park, left a chair to claim our spot, and drove to nearby Richmond, hoping to find garage sales. Finding none, we did a short downtown wander and bought some ice cream. Supper was chicken/beef stir-fried rice in the RV.

[NOTE: Photos marked with ^* were provided by Norm Czepiela]

To Nelson

Picton Scenic Overlook*

Whenuanui Bay*

Cullen Point Lookout

Cullen Point Lookout

Nelson

trundler return

Fifeshire Rock

Tahunanui Beach

Jens Hansen Jewelers

One Ring brochure (larger image)	One Ring with chain Narya & Vilya
		ring prices
large & small rings Joe with large ring Janene with large ring

Tahuna Beach Holiday Park

gang at Nelson

Norm, Mike, Lynn, Louise & Sandy

Norm, Mike, Lynn & Louise

Hal

13 April 2008
Sunday

Hope Saddle Observation Point, Buller Gorge Swing Bridge & Ariki Falls

Joe again: Once again, we broke from the herd, driving north to weekend trade-days at Mapua and Motueka, but when we got to Mapua, we found that they had shut down for the winter 2 weeks ago, so we pressed onward. Things were still operating in Motueka, and we looked thru all the booths. We met Larry & JoAnn there and went partners on a sack of potatoes. We left Motueka via the Motueka Valley Highway till it intersected with Highway 6. It was one of the best drives yet, through a farming valley with steep mountains on all sides, no traffic, and great scenery. Very relaxing in spite of the numerous twists and turns. We stopped to look at a few things along the way, but the major event of the day was the Buller Gorge Swing Bridge, the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. We walked across it, then hiked for about 1.5 hrs, including a primitive trail to the river and some falls. We believe that trail, with rugged rock climbing and one point where we used a fixed rope to semi-rappel down an embankment, may now be the top hike of the trip, and one of the top events. We drove on to Westport, where we found a caravan park just at dark. Only walked 4.58 miles, but much of it was high quality.

71 PHOTOS, 4 VIDEOS

14 April 2008
Monday

Cape Foulwind, Tauranga Bay, Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes

Joe: We slept in till 0900, so had granola bars for breakfast instead of the planned pancakes and eggs. A quick drive-thru of Westport (the only kind possible) turned up 1 thrift store, which Janene inspected thoroughly, buying nothing. A short drive thru Carters Beach took us to Cape Foulwind, where we hiked a trail near a lighthouse for about 45 min. The next stop was a seal colony at nearby Tauranga Bay, where we spent another 45 minutes. Nearby, we stumbled upon a beach with adjacent rocky point. There were huge boulders arranged just right for leaping from one to the other. We spent nearly an hour exploring and photographing surf and interesting patterns on the rocks created by mussels. Light rain started to fall as we continued to drive south. By the time we arrived at the Pancake Rocks and Blowhole at Panakaiki around 1500 hrs, it was a steady drizzle. High tide wasn't until 1830 hrs, so we went to our scheduled nearby RV park and got set up. Supper was prepared and eaten in the camp kitchen, and we're pretty much tucked in for the night at 1900 hrs. Morning high tide is 0700, so we're hoping the weather will be better then. Walked 6.36 miles: we broke the 200-mile mark today.

73 PHOTOS, 2 VIDEOS

15 April 2008
Tuesday

Drive to Franz Josef / Waiau, Franz Josef Glacier

It rained off and on most of the night. We awoke about 0600 and were ready to leave camp by 0630. By the time we arrived at the blowhole, it was pretty light and the rain had mostly stopped. Even though we were in position at the advertised optimal time, the blowhole only blew a little bit one time. After about 20 minutes, we gave up and moved on, driving south along the coast on highway 6. When we got to Greymouth, we drove along the boat docks looking for our group's caravans. 6 of them were supposed to go fishing this morning, but we learned later that the storms forced them to scrub the mission. We stumbled upon a grocery store and re-stocked our pantry. From Greymouth, we continued south and arrived in Hokitika around 1100 hrs. We strolled the town, which is full of assorted glass and jade artisans, plus other artsy types, until lunchtime. The rain continued to toy with us, but was really no problem, and we checked in at the campground in Franz-Josef about 1500.

Larry and JoAnn rode up to the glacier with us. JoAnn, Janene, and I climbed through the barricades like dozens of others and hike about a mile, almost all the way to the glacier, before encountering insurmountable obstacles. The trek took about an hour and a half, so it was time to start supper when we got set up in camp. Janene found a short trail on the map located just at the edge of town that was reported to have glow worms. After supper, we rousted Larry and JoAnn out and all went worm hunting. The trail wasn't all that long, but was quite challenging, given that it was very steep and rough in spots, and we only had a couple of LED flashlights. Fortunately, Janene only tripped and fell once. We stopped periodically to check for glow worms, and finally started seeing a few in the bushes. As we neared the end of the trail, they were really thick in the mossy banks along the trail and in the trees. While they weren't as thick as at Waitoma Caves, looking in the trees and bushes was about like looking at the sky on a clear night with no light pollution. Very memorable. 9.19 miles walking today.

68 PHOTOS

16 April 2008
Wednesday

Fox Glacier, Knights Point, Haast River, Blue Pools, Lake Wanaka & Lake Hawea

It rained most of the night & continued to do so at sunrise, so our plans to get out early again so we could hike around Lake Matheson were de-railed. Instead, we fixed ham, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast and drove south to Fox Glacier. When we hiked out to the glacier, we found the usual dire warnings and barricades, both of which we ignored so that we could hike where we wanted for better photo ops. Once again, we beat the odds and survived to tell about it.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Sandy Beach, which was most memorable for its small but voracious flies. Janene picked up a few rocks, but we moved on pretty quickly. We stopped at Thunder Falls (nearly 100 ft tall), and the Gates of Haast, where we did some heavy-duty rock scrambling. Fantail Falls trail led us to a gravel bar on a river that visitors have covered with stone cairns. There must be hundreds of them, from 1 to 5 ft tall and so thick that they were slightly difficult to walk through. We added 2 more to the collection. At Blue Pools, we hiked about 15 minutes to a pretty long swing bridge. We also stopped a few times as we drove along the shores of Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, but nothing exciting happened. We got to the RV park in Wanaka and got parked just at dark. Walked 7.23 miles today.

97 PHOTOS

17 April 2008
Thursday

Arrow Junction, Arthurs Point Gorge, Queenstown, Earnslaw dinner cruise

Joe: After taking on a little fuel, we drove to Queenstown via the Cardrona Valley Road. It's a nice drive down a valley between two mountain ranges that get progressively closer together, until you're forced to drive over one of them. We ended up driving in heavy fog near the top of the pass, then encountered major road construction. Even with all that, it was a pleasant drive providing us some spectacular views. We arrived in Arrowtown well before noon and walked around town window shopping all of the tourist trap stores for about an hour.

Upon arrival in Queenstown, we went directly to the RV park, as the town is small and difficult to drive in. The group had a scheduled event at 1730 hrs, consisting of a cruise down the lake on a 1912 vintage steamboat, then dinner at a 65,000 acre sheep/cattle ranch. We walked to town and explored on foot for about 3 hours till sailing time. The boat trip was nice, and the meal was excellent. Even though we'd seen sheep dog and shearing demos before, this one was quite entertaining, as the fellow doing it had a good routine and manner.

66 PHOTOS

18 April 2008
Friday

Milford Sound (Andersons & Czepielas), Queenstown Hill (J&J)

Still Joe: The scheduled activity for the day was a 5-hour bus ride to Milford Sound, a luncheon cruise, then another 5-hour bus ride back to Queenstown. I declared that I wasn't going to ride a bus for 10 hrs if Shamu himself was scheduled to jump over the boat. With no encouragement from me, Janene agreed. So we slept in when the others arose in the dark, then did laundry and went walking in town. We wandered through city parks, bought goodies at a bakery, and hiked the Queenstown Hill Time Track. We climbed a couple thousand feet on the trail - high enough that it was snowing pretty hard on us. The trail is a loop, but we weren't sure where we were and it was getting dark, so we turned back. We learned later that we were almost to the halfway point - oh well. We made it back to town okay, fixed supper, and turned in to be ready for tomorrow.

69 PHOTOS

19 April 2008
Saturday

Joe reporting: As soon as the office opened, we borrowed the campground phone and made arrangements to ride Segways this afternoon. It was pretty cold again last night; there's more snow on the mountains than yesterday. Hoping that the misty, windy weather would improve, we set our Segway ride for a noon pickup. As noon approached, it was apparent that the afternoon would be chilly and slightly damp. I donned wool socks, silk long-johns, Nomex pants, t-shirt, long-sleeved turtleneck, sweatshirt, and jacket. Over this, I added rain pants and jacket and a stocking cap. The Segway guy loaned me some wooly gloves, too. Janene was similarly attired, but had on 2 pairs of gloves. With all this, we were comfortable, if slightly chilly. Anything less would have been uncomfortable. After about 45 minutes of guided touring and point-of-interest commentary, we were turned loose for the next 2 hrs. We were also given the codes to let our machines run in high gear - about 20 KMPH. That doesn't sound like much, but it's fairly smokin' along on those things. We rode along a trail by the lake shore to the next town, then back to the start where we rode all around in a city park till our time was up. We believe we rode over 20 KM. In spite of the cool weather, and Janene crashing once (her machine might have gone off a small cliff into the lake had it not hit a park bench after she fell off), we had a great time. The first thing we did back at camp was fix hot chocolate!

Today was Evelyn's birthday. Janene & I bought a cake at a local bakery, then met all but 2 of the original Australia group at a local café for supper. She was very surprised, and a good time was had by all. Most of us walked back to camp after supper. Tomorrow we move on to Dunedin.

[NOTE: Photos marked with ^* were provided by Norm Czepiela

Photos marked with ^† were provided by Hal Anderson]

Skyline Gondola*

Pigeon Island from Glenorchy*

rainbow over lake*

J & J's Segway Adventure

Bonus Chicago Video Janene (42s, 3.2MB)	Bonus Chicago Video Joe (1:03, 5.3MB)	Segways Video (34s, 8.4MB)	Segways by lake
Janene's wreck	Joe's Segway Video (33s, 7.0MB)	Janene's Segway Video (50s, 10.8MB)	Janene on bridge
Joe & Janene		Hampshire Holiday Parks - Queenstown Lakeview

Speight's Ale House - Evelyn's birthday

*

†

†

Joe & Janene†

Sandy†

Evelyn blowing out candles*

Evelyn with cake

Janene cutting cake†

20 April 2008
Sunday

Kawarau Gorge, Roaring Meg, Bruce Jackson Lookout, Clyde Dam, Mt Stuart Tunnel

There were several route choices from Queenstown to Dunedin. After inquiring in Alexandra, we elected to take the southern route through Lawrence. It was through wine country much of the way, with a few mountains thrown in. We stopped for ice cream in Lawrence, and explored an abandoned railroad tunnel in Manuka Gorge, where we found hundreds of glow worms. We arrived at the night's RV park shortly before dark, got situated, and cooked supper. We managed to get most of our pictures backed up to a second hard drive, so now we have to lose or have crash 2 devices to cause a true picture crisis.

84 PHOTOS

21 April 2008
Monday

Larnach Castle, Natures Wonders (Taiaroa Head), Taieri Gorge Railway

A bus picked us up at the RV park at 0830 and drove us out the Otago peninsula to tour Larnach Castle - not a castle, but a huge house built by a local big wig back in the 1800s. We got the Cook's Tour of the place, then moved on to a private wildlife sanctuary called Natures Wonders. The group had lunch there after being toured about in Argo ATVs. We saw seals up close, and 1 penguin. The ATVs were more fun than the jet boats we rode a couple of weeks ago. After lunch, we bussed downtown to the train station for a scenic ride up into the mountains. It was a better trip than average. We stood on the platform of the last car most of the way, and I wrangled a ride in the engine for about half the return trip. Back to the RV for supper, then time to catch up the journal and finish the picture backup.

181 PHOTOS, 1 VIDEO

22 April 2008
Tuesday

We broke ranks from the group and stayed in Dunedin while the official route went to Mt Cook. Actually, most of the group wandered off. We don't know if it's because, like us, they are sick of the leaders, or if they just are tired of mountains. We went to a "Machines of DaVinci" exhibit which was on loan to the Otago Museum from Milan, Italy. Very interesting. We then headed up the coast toward Christchurch, stopping at a few points of interest, most notably the Moeraki Boulders, strange spherical rocks at surf's edge. We stopped for the night in Rakaia, about an hour south of Christchurch.

[NOTE: Photos marked with ^* were provided by Norm Czepiela]

Dunedin Holiday Park

*

Otago Museum: da Vinci exhibit

Moa	with 'donation' egg	column lifter	anatomical drawings	"Self Portrait" after 1515 Turin, Biblioteca Reale
da Vinci sketchbooks reaping wagon reciprocal frame structure

Scaling Ladders Video (15s, 0.8MB)

Cam Hammer Video (7s, 0.4MB)

Janene in mirror maze

Janene in mirror maze

Moeraki Boulders Beach

info sign (larger sign)

morning tide*

afternoon tide

Boulder

Boulder

Moeraki Alien

Joe on Moeraki Boulder

Boulder

Janene in Moeraki Boulder

Boulders

Boulders

Boulders

red deer?

red deer?

Driving to Rakaia

mountain range

23 April 2008
Wednesday

Cathedral Square, Christchurch Cathedral, Cathedral Junction

We made it to Christchurch without incident and parked at the RV park about 1130. We stopped by the Antarctic Center, but after checking the activities, decided we'd already seen most of what was there at other places. Instead of Antarctica, we rode the city bus downtown and took a guided tour of the cathedral. In addition to the regular tour, we got to go up in the organ loft and to the basement to see the blower machinery, plus we climbed the 134 steps to the bell tower - most of them on a very tight spiral staircase. Combined with a bit of wandering about, and the afternoon was gone, so we bussed back to the RV, fixed supper, and started packing.

41 PHOTOS

24 April 2008
Thursday

Christ's College, Botanic Gardens, The Arts Centre, Tramway Restaurant

After breakfast, we gave away what we didn't want to bring home, dumped all the tanks, filled the LPG bottle, and checked into our hotel. On the way over, we stopped at a Salvation Army thrift store to donate everybody's lawn chairs we'd bought in Australia, plus some clothes and shoes people didn't want to lug home. The RV was returned with a minimum of fuss, and we walked back to the hotel. More re-packing awaited us, as we searched for the perfect distribution of goods among our 3 bags. We came over with 2 bags.

JoAnn accompanied us on a bus ride downtown, where we visited a local museum, walked all over the Botanic Garden, and generally played tourist. We met the others at the dinner trolley about 1930 hrs and dined as we cruised the streets of Christchurch. This dinner trolley was a bust compared to Melbourne; we would have been better off just going to a nice restaurant.

59 PHOTOS, 1 VIDEO

25 April 2008
Friday

We got to sleep in this morning, since our checkout time was noon, but old habits die hard and we awoke fairly early. We put the time to good use and got our packing fine-tuned and ate a big breakfast. A bus transferred us to the airport for our flight to Aukland. We were able to check our luggage all the way to L.A., but were late leaving, so had to rush to make the connection in Aukland. After much confusion, everybody made it aboard. The flight was crowded, and the seating was dense, but the weather was mostly smooth. At least Quantas gives you free drinks and plenty of refreshments.

Assembly Point sign

Christchurch Airport

Joe at airport

25 April 2008
Friday

Because of crossing the international date line, we actually arrived before we took off. Departure time from Aukland was 1800 hrs on 4/25, and we arrived in L.A. about 1130 on 4/25. Actual flying time was around 11 hrs - it just seemed longer. We fairly sailed through immigration and customs, checked our luggage to DFW, then had a couple of hours to wait. We finished off the last of our bakery goodies from New Zealand.

Compared to the Australian leg of the trip, New Zealand came in a poor second. The group was too large, the itinerary too busy, and the leaders failed miserably to match up to Greg Bruce. The only reason we would go on another planned, guided trip would be if we feared for our safety on our own.

The leaders either treated us like grade schoolers or ignored us. They were usually the first ones out of the campground in the morning, and the first ones in taking the best sites at the next stop. It seemed as if the leaders were two couples on vacation together except for the times when they were making a big production out of micro-managing parking at the campgrounds, or holding tiresome "move meetings." One of our group was mobility challenged, but a group member, not the leaders, hustled up a wheelchair at the Aukland airport. In Picton, sites were very un-level. The leaders cut ahead of the line and secured level spots; one of the group members located lumber and helped level the other rigs. When one rig had a fairly major problem, the driver was told, "Call the number on the door." The leaders didn't even offer the use of a cell phone, much less assist with solving the problem.

Richard was not so bad, and seemed to try to do his job, but if we ever see Dave & Patty coming, we will flee rapidly in another direction. Patty's fake enthusiasm reminded us of Victoria Jackson's cheerleader character on Saturday Night Live. Many of us wondered if our money paid for the leaders to have 6-place rigs. It was also noted that they had brand new rigs, while the group members 6-place rigs were well worn.