Leap day! Here in Wellington they’re celebrating by bungy jumping off a high bridge. Any excuse, I guess.
We headed to the South Island via ferry this morning. The ferry boat is a huge cruiser that has ten decks. The bottom one is for rail cars, the next up for regular vehicles and the rest for passengers. It’s very nice and civilized and takes about three hours to cross over. They have rows of seats lined up like on an airliner, but much more roomy, and swivel seats by the windows. They have a cafeteria, a games room, and even a small theater (showing Atonement, of course). 
Sharon bought two little bottles of champagne to celebrate our voyage. Chris spent much of the trip on the top deck being blown around while taking far too many pictures as we entered the Marlborough Sounds on the way to docking in Picton.
After getting off the ferry, we drove west a little bit through more twisty mountain roads with gorgeous views of the water to our right and unbelievably verdant tree fern forests to our left. We’re getting tired of twisty mountain roads though. Then we headed south through the wine country of Renwick and Blenheim … guess what, we don’t really care that much about wine country, so we pretty much blew right through that and headed for the Pacific. And an hour later or so we had our first sight of it! (shown here).
We passed a road called “Wharanui Beach Road” and turned around to go back and get our first close-up look at the Pacific. What we found was a remarkable black pebble beach — no sand or even dust, just black pebbles of various sizes, from rice grains up to golf balls. Sharon was quite happy exploring the pebbles!
We continued our drive down the coast, heading towards Kaikoura. We knew that there was a roadside seal colony on the way there, and we weren’t disappointed. Two words: Baby seals. Not just baby seals, but FOUR baby seals all jumping and romping on each other (look closely at this picture). Oh, and a couple dozen adults …
We finally arrived at Kaikoura, checked into another holiday park (yes, with the ubiquitous ducks) and walked down to a nearby restaurant for dinner. We have a confession to make. We’re really bad at seafood . This place is swarming with crayfish (big ones; might be rock lobster) and green mussels. We hate them both. We like fish and some other forms of seafood, but those two (and oysters) just creep us out.
We finished up with an hour of internet access at an internet cafe. We are sooo starved for internet access ….
and government-looking types, since this is the capitol city; here you see the parliamentary buildings, including the “beehive”. We headed down the main shopping drag, and turned into a shopping district called Cuba Street that was much like Little Five Points or Haight Ashbury. We stopped in at Tattoo City where Dan was scheduled to mark up Sharon’s right arm that evening. She looked over drawings and made arrangements to return at 6 pm for the work.
The gardens are many acres of winding paths that eventually work their way back down to city streets at the bottom of the hill. When in wooded areas we keep hearing the “clapping cicada”, which is a cicada that makes deep clicking noises in addition to the regular cicada sound. In fact, the cicadas were deafening! We worked our way to the bottom of the hill through the gardens (and the obligatory stop at the duck pond) and caught a bus back into the center of downtown and the tattoo parlor.
Sharon and Dan set to work on the arm. The tattoo that Sharon and Dan designed incorporates the Koru, which is the Maori spiral symbol for the life cycle, and the fern, which is the national plant (and one of Sharon’s favorites). This picture shows the tattoo right after it was finished. It’ll be a little different after the swelling goes down and the healing starts. Sharon has two tattoos from two different countries where tattoos are a huge part of the culture. While Sharon was in the chair for 3 hours, Chris went back to the Te Papa museum and was able to spend a full hour in their excellent whales exhibit — a special exhibit on another floor that we’d missed the first time through. Te Papa has been redeemed! Chris also tried to get up to the top of Mount Victoria to get a nighttime view of the city but missed the last bus …
Well, we pulled into the station parking lot to find our campervan intact and unharmed! At 10pm we pulled back into the Porirua campground — this being the second night there, and the only time this trip that we’ll stay with the campervan overnight in one place twice!
We started today by backtracking a little bit to a small river that Chris had spotted on the way to the campground last night. Just a few hundred yards off the main road, we found some rapids of a river that was coming down off the Tongariro range. Lots of boulders to jump around on (and risk ankle injury).
Then we headed briefly up into the mountain village, couldn’t get far, and headed back down and got on the road to Wellington. Stopped at some waterfalls along the way, lots of twisty, difficult driving as we pulled our way through the mountains.
Sharon found more meat-flavored potato chips at a convenience store.
We arrived at the Tasman Sea coast in a small city called Wanganui and headed straight for the beach. Despite appearing to be a real destination, with beachhouse showers and parking and everything, it was essentially deserted — perhaps because of the weird location (we had to drive through an industrial area to get there), perhaps because it was off-season and a Wednesday afternoon. Anyway, it was an incredible unspoiled beach (the first of many, we’re guessing) strewn with various natural detritus all over a sea of coarse black sand. We got into our bathing suits and ran into the water up to our shins … and bolted right back out, shocked from the cold. So then we just sat around in the sun and wind for a bit. Chris wandered up to the top of the dunes and took a few pictures of the surrounding neighborhoods and the bay and coastline in the distance.
got to see the incubation system and brooding cages and get right next to three of them in a special nighttime habitat for about a half hour. An adult kiwi is actually quite large, about the size of a large chicken, with a huge back end and a long beak that they poke around for grubs with. It’s extremely doubtful we’ll see one anywhere but a zoo or center like this.
We drove into the Tongariro national park area, which surrounds three huge volcanos. We eventually settled into a holiday park (lodge + huts + tent sites + campervan sites) that advertised views of all three volcanos, and the view didn’t disappoint. Chris was able to take a great series of panoroma shots. One of the mountains, Ngauruho, is also known as Mount Doom in some famous movie about fairies. Our campervan was backed onto a huge meadow fringed in the distance with forest, and we could hear all sort of nefarious natural things going on out there as night fell. Chris was able to get a quick look at the cloudless night sky, seeing the stars of the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, and the Milky Way splashed across the dome. And, believe it or not, Chris thinks that the space station made an appearance! A bright light made its way across the sky, in the right direction and speed for ISS, and having seen it cross over so many times, he’s sure that’s what it was. We just need to confirm it once we have the internet and time to goof off with it …
Once we have a better connection, we’ll go back and add more to these.
This morning we were picked up at the hotel by a taxi, which took us to an industrial park near the airport where our motorhome (aka “campervan”) was waiting for us. We were happy to see how big it was, not just a converted van like we thought — it’s more like a small delivery truck outfitted for living. Plus Chris can stand up in it without bumping his head (well, if he takes off his shoes). The 
Also their dog Georgia (!) made us feel comfortable, and vice versa.
We had received a little keychain made by Bridget when we were in San Franscisco a few days ago and promptly applied it to the job!
Stopped off at Foodtown to get supplies first and then we commenced our drive! It started out on a highway proper (well, once we found the highway) but then became more of a jaunt down side roads in the countryside as we got a bit inadvertantly detoured. We’ll get the hang of this map reading thing sooner or later. Actually, we’re beginning to think that except for right in the cities, there are no limited-access highways like we have in the US and Europe, rather just fast rural roads. The speed limit is 100 kph (60 mph) which is plenty fast for the van. Lots of rolling hills, cows, sheep, farmland and little towns. Lots of corrugated metal art and signage here for some reason.
So we drove from Auckland, down through the farmlands around Hamilton and Cambridge, and ended up at Rotorua. Stopped for fish and chips at a windblown cafe on the side of the road. It felt like we were climbing a gentle slope for an hour as we approached Rotorua, and later we learned that the Rotorua region (a large town and surrounding countryside) is actually the caldera of a huge ancient volcano. The low mountains surrounding us on all sides are the rim of gigantic crater.
In Rotorua we went to the 
on historical European artist interprations of the culture and the clash between the two. Another great NZ museum.
We walked right out onto the beach and observed the bubbling and steaming and wrinkling of our noses.
Here’s a Pukeko running away as Sharon stalked it at the museum. It’s one of the few birds that’s not endangered here. Centuries ago the poor NZ birds were all flightless because they had no predators. Then the Brits arrived and decided to bring in sport animals that started eating all the indigenous flora and fauna. We found out that NZ has hedgehogs and wallabies (bonus animals!). Again, imported “accidently” from other countries, much like the rabbits, stoats, snakes, cats and Australian possums used to kill off the “pest” animals that the Brits let overrun the country.
Our long day ended at a Belgian bar with a full meal and some great Belgian beer. We drove to our home for the night, the Redwoods Holiday Park. Our first visit to a motor park and it’s a bit odd. It’s a cozy spot with roads and spots to pull in off onto grassy areas with power and water hookups. 
Our van is amazingly appointed. TV, dvd/cd player, shower/toilet, gas cook top, small oven and a sitting area/dining table in the back that converts to a bed at night. Just the right size for short little Sharon, a bit cramped for Chris. He’s sleeping a bit diagonally. 
We started today with a trip to the Auckland Domain (domain being a general term for “park” here), which appears to be the largest park in the city. 
After passing through a nice little duck pond area and a fantastic greenhouse complex (with “fernery”), we ended up at the 
Back at the hotel, Chris got online and was able to figure out the Auckland bus system sufficiently so that we could get to Mount Eden. These trips … you quickly become so familiar with the transit system, and so dependent on it; it’s a real shame that Atlanta recently shut down its own Tourist Loop bus. Anyway, a short bus ride and we were at the base of Mount Eden, and after some huffing up a trail, we were at the top, along with all the people who had driven up. Mount Eden is an old dormant volcano, practically in the middle of Auckland, and in the huge crater at the peak were … five head of cattle. Also at the bottom along with the cows was the equivalent of farmland graffiti; cowpies spelling out the names of people who’d managed to collect them and arrange them way down there. By this time the skies had cleared and we had late afternoon sunshine for the first time, so it made for some spectacular views up there.
Then we headed back into downtown and wandered through Albert Park, where the annual Lantern Festival was in full swing. 
Chinese performances, chinese food, chinese trinkets, and huge throngs of people. There was also a symphony performance in the main park and we watched the fireworks from our hotel balcony.
Outside, there was a constant, light rain driven by some serious winds. Back in Atlanta, this is the kind of driven rain we only get when the remnants of a hurricane come through. And while we eventually learned that this was indeed rather abnormally bad weather for Auckland summer, the locals didn’t seem that concerned about it, and the streets of downtown Auckland were bustling with a Saturday shopping crowd, really as if the weather was of no concern. Sharon got contact lenses especially for this trip and that was a great idea since we were wet most of the day.
Auckland’s was no comparison to Tokyo’s, of course, but still wondrous and afforded plenty of opportunities for dropping our jaws at the strange creatures that were being presented to us on ice.
Our local friend Fiona met up with us at the hotel restaurant for an early dinner. Fiona is the sister of our neighbor in ATL and works for Air New Zealand. We had a nice long chat about all the places we are going to, should be going to and wish we had time to go to. We finally collapsed into bed for a long night of sleep.
Up at 5am to get onto an early ATL to SFO flight. It seems like the whole country had cloud cover, since we didn’t see the ground once, save for a few peaks at the Rocky Mountains and plateaus in Utah (pictured).
airport and we headed over to the Coyote Point wildlife study center near the airport (in Burlingame) and had a great time looking at CA animals and hordes of school children. Then we settled into a nearby cafe for an afternoon of eating, drinking coffee and sitting around and chatting. It was great to see them all even though it was just for a few hours.
Got on the long-haul airplane at 6:30pm (SFO time, 9:30pm ATL time) and took off in the dark over the Pacific ocean. There was a full moon a good part of the flight. The aircraft was a nice newish Boeing 777, which still had us crammed in too tight but at least gave every passenger his/her own independent movie playback system, with a library of hundred of movies and TV shows. Chris got through Into The Wild and Michael Clayton, and Sharon squandered the opportunity by watching Flight of the Conchords episodes that she had just seen last week. (Sharon says: I also watched a Japanese game show of a crane game competition with a Lolita girl in pink against 3 others picking up kawaii plush toys. Also watched several Kiwi cooking shows; I know everyone loves whitebait sandwiches, but I just don’t think I will.) The flight also had decent food and not too many squawling children.
It’s here! On Thursday we leave for our long-planned trip to New Zealand. It has been on our minds for a couple years, and we’ve been focused on the detail planning now for months.
Then it’ll be about 8 days working our way around the South Island; from Picton we’ll head down to Christchurch on the east coast, and from there we’ll either work our way in a clockwise loop (continuing down the east coast) or counterclockwise (crossing inland). We haven’t decided yet.