Self portrait, Palo Alto Bowl. 

Zack got a spare! 

Bowling, an Easter tradition since 2005! 

I like the composition of this one.... 

The kids enjoyed their easter egg hunt! 

Buy This Album!

Check out M. Ward's new release, Transister Radio.

I found out about it from this report on NPR. Listen to it and you can hear snippets from the disc: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4510551

It's really interesting. Part folk, part rock, some tracks seem old fashioned, some sound totally modern. It's hard to describe but worth checking out.

-Rich

Zack enjoys a day in our own version of middle earth, Rancho San Antonio park. 

Home!

Well, it took about 25 hours door-to-door, but we left Auckland Friday morning at 9:00 am and we arrived at SFO at about 9:45 am Friday morning. It takes 2 days get there, and only 30 minutes to return. Gotta love it!

More later-

-Rich

Days 11 and 12 - Hobbiton and Rotorua

It's been busy here, and there wasn't any internet access in Rotorua. Let's see. When last we met our heroes, they were in Auckland. We'll pick up the story from there.

Auckland, part 2- Not too much to say here, we spent our second day in Auckland buying some souveniers and visiting the Maritime Museum, which had LOTS of old boats, pictures of boats, drawings of boats, models of boats, and pieces of boats, and pictures of people who sailed on boats. Did I mention that they also had boats? All in all, it was a pretty cool museum, especially for boat lovers.

Next day, we headed down to Rotorua, a spa town with thermal stuff like geysers. But first, we had to stop in Matamata for a tour of Hobbiton. This involved us exchanging currency for a bus ride to a sheep farm, complete with authentic sheep poo.

Hobbiton is on a working sheep farm, and part of the original set was left behind because it started to rain. It was pretty interesting to see. Many of the scenes from the beginning of the first movie were filmed here. The hobbit holes, of course, are only facades, as they filmed the interior scenes in the studio. The area around Hobbition was also very beautiful.

Next stop- Rotorua. This town really stinks! It's true- there are so many geysers, bubbling mud pits, and steam vents around the town that it literally stinks of sulfur. Takes some getting used to. It's a wild place- driving down the road in the middle of town there is suddenly a block that has steam rising out of it instead of a building.

We went to a couple of different places with a collection of thermal features, and also took in a Maori show. Maori are pacific islanders who settled down here years ago, before the property market really took off. The show was similar in many ways to the stuff you'd see at a Hawaiian luau. Of course, they are cousins.

Another thing we discovered about NZ- road construction. The whole damn country is being repaved right now. Apparently, they start construction this month so that they can be sure of getting funding to finish in next years budget. This was annoying, but is superior to the Costa Rican way, where the road is torn up and then everyone leaves and never comes back to finish.

We're leaving tomorrow AM early, so we'll probably post a few last pictures and comments on Friday afternoon, California time.

-Rich

"Devil's Cauldron", bubbling mud pool. Hot stuff! 

Maori performers - after the show. 

Maori meeting hall. Beginning of Maori performance. We'll soon be invited in. 

Geyser at New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. 

We're hobbits! Bilbo's home, "Bag End" 

Rich and Carol hugging "The Party Tree" from Fellowship of the Rings (Bilbo's party scene). 

Rich admiring the boats for sale in Auckland harbour. 

Day 9- Poor Knights Island Dive

Carol gave me the day off to go diving. I had to get up at 6:15 am to drive down to Tutukaka and go diving with Dive! Tutukaka (http://www.diving.co.nz/poorknights.htm). It was a glorious morning, and I saw very few cars as I drove over winding country roads.

Poor Knights is a group of "islands"- big rocks- that is part of an extinct volcano. It's about 25 km off shore, and it is one of Jacques Cousteau's top 10 dive destinations. it is cool water dive- the water is in the low 70's. There isn't any coral or many tropical fish, but they do have lots of pretty stuff to see. Of note were:

Manta Rays- the first I've seen. One was over 6 feet in wingspan, with a huge long tail. I was about 3 feet from it. I spooked it and it swam off.

Kelp Fields- they have beautiful kelp that is only about 3 feet tall.

Blue Mao Mao fish- these are 1-2 foot fish that are very blue.

The second dive was especially memoriable- going through the Blue Mao Mao arch, light was coming in from above and there were hundreds of Mao Mao's swimming through with us. It was like a TV nature show. My dive partner Chris took some pictures, hopefully we'll get a few posted here.

-Rich

This is the arch called "Blue Moa Moa Arch" which we went through on our dive. 

Another view, with a dive boat. This is similar to the one we were on, from the same company., 

One of the many arches at Poor Knights Island. We motored through this one in the dive boat. 

Days 8 and 9 - the Northland

Northland is the area north of Auckland. We headed north in our little car on Sunday morning. After leaving the Auckland suburbs, it got rural really quickly. Green hillsides, forests, herds of cows and sheep. We took a left on hwy. 12, which put us out in nowhere for a while. But eventually we found our destination, the Kauri forest. Kauri trees are the native trees, which were much prized by early loggers, and now are a tourist destination. They grow really slowly, and have a very hard wood. We made a few quick stops there, and took pictures by that really huge tree. Pictures cannot show how large it was - I think it even impressed me as being bigger than our big California redwoods in the north. The forest was interesting as well, since it had many different trees, including fern-looking trees (palms, maybe). After leaving the forest, we drove through the most beautiful hills and valleys I'd ever seen. I thought I'd died and gone to a warm-weather Switzerland! :) And it just kept getting better. Eventually we ended up in Russell around dinnertime. We had to take a car ferry to get there, which was surprisingly easy. Our hotel, the Duke of Marlborough, was a historic building. The first bar and hotel in New Zealand. I believe it was built in the mid 1800s.

Gosh, I nearly forgot Sheepworld. I noticed it on our map, and nudged Rich and said "aw, come on!" It turned out to be a very fun little stop. We were convinced to watch the 1 hour sheep show, and it was really great! We watched a sheepdog herding sheep, then sheep sorting, sheep milking (they demonstrated with a goat - I did that), sheep shearing (which was interesting), and then a mock auction of wool, and finished with feeding bottles of milk to some eager lambs. Surprisingly, this little diversion to Sheepworld was probably the most fun we had that day!

So, next day Rich got to go diving at Poor Knights Island (which he wants to describe himself). He left early and got back late. I spent the day wandering the streets of Russell. It was a small, sleepy tourist town, with a very interesting history. In the old European-immigrant whaling days, they called it the "hellhole of the Pacific". In other words, people came there to get drunk and pick up women and pick fights. Anyway, I learned all about that and more during my ramble through the museum and old buildings. Then, I hiked up a hill to a sundial and flagstaff. Still, I had more time to kill, so I browsed through every gallery and shop in the little town. Took some nice pictures. Rich finally returned, and we had a slab of meat for dinner (yuck). Now we're in Auckland again, which I think I'll write about next time.

-Carol

Boats in the Russell harbour. The old town we stayed in while in the Bay of Islands. Rich went diving, while I looked around Russell. 

An incredible view along our drive in the Northland. Though I'm not showing every picture here, I thought we'd surely found paradise. Green hillsides, warm weather... 

The world's second tallest, but first oldest Kauri tree. Over 2,000 years old. It was totally huge! 

We took turns feeding a bottle of milk to a very thirsty lamb. 

Carol volunteers to milk a goat. It works! 

Demonstration of sheep herding at Sheepworld. Smart dog! 

Rich reluctantly (!) agrees to go to Sheepworld. But, it turned out to be a great show (as you'll see)...! 

Auckland sky tower lit up at night 

Day 7- traveling to Auckland

We took a 45 minute flight to Auckland this morning. We thought about driving, but it would have taken all day to drive up here and we have lots of driving ahead of us.

So today was the day- we rented a car at the airport and I drove into Auckland. Driving on the wrong side of the road is quite a trick, but I have been a passenger in many countries where they drive "wrong" before. The confusing part is the traffic circles, which are extensively used instead of traffic lights. It's like DC, but they are all two lanes and they go the other way.

So far, we haven't hit anything. However, I have a strong tendency to drift over to the shoulder for some reason. Right hand turns are also fun. Remember- "It's a right. That's like a left. I have to end up in the far lane, not the closer one with cars pointing at me."

We looked around the city for a while- pictures are here. We're coming back here for another night later on, and we'll try to hit the other highlights then. Tomorrow, we're off to the northland and the countryside. I'll be diving at Poor Knights Island on Monday. YEAH!

-Rich

Rich eating lunch. We ate at a "deli" that was part of a fresh fish market. We ordered "Flounder Fish and Chips". We expected fried fish nuggets and french frys. We got a whole, deep fried flounder with the head on it. It was gooood.