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Saturday, February 9, 2008

Welcome to Fiji!






The Resort!

Vacation Fiji





Delayed! Shocker! Well we finallu make it here! Welcome to Fiji! This is the resort we stayed at!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Merry Christmas





We managed to make it to Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas Everyone. Weird to spend it with the doors open and wearing short sleves and with no family... it is funny because for Christmas in NZ they have BBQ's. Just like our 4th of July... They open presents and then go to the beach or to a friends house and grill. Weird not to open gifts. Makes you realize it is not about the gifts but about the people that surround you. Love to you all!!





Caving. So it was not enough to do absailing down giant mountains. We had to go below ground as well and see the glow worms. Amazing to see them light up the caverns with their little bodies... We did a bit of the repeling and then some rock climbing by the time we made it back to the surface we were exhausted. Really... Really... cold though. Man that water... there was a reason we were wearing wet suits...





Off to Rotorua and the Geothermica capital of the country. All off these are heated by the geothermic energy. These are all old volcanos that are now craters. They give off an immense amount of heat and the steam rolls across these giant crater lakes. The sulfur smell leaves quite a bit to be desired.... Yuck!!

Gorgeous though. Get a load of the color of the water. Makes you want to jump right in.





Bay of Islands. That is where we are. We decided to take a speed boat to see the islands. Well they make you wear these waterproof suits over your clothes and give you a bag to hold your camera. Well we head out at very fast speeds. Right into a rain storm. Yes. I said it rain storm. Well image moving 50MPH or 100 KMPH with rain pelting you. Awesome. Not so much. Well we got to see the hole in the rock. Inventive... Those New Zealanders... so creative... Then even with wearing the plastic suits. We were soaking wet underneath. It was still raining when we got in the car and headed back to Auckland.


Sheep. Maybe i mentioned this? or not. Well Sheep lots of them. Everywhere, good to watch...eat. You name it. Well here we see them high in the hills playing follow the leader. I made Jeff pull over to the side of the road so i could hop out and take photos. The best part... you could hear them baaaahing while they were following the leader. Awesome. Everyone should see some live action like this..





We are off to Waiheke Island. We took the ferry over to the island, rented a car and toured the island. It was gorgeous. We had lunch at a small winery overlooking this view. Amazing. Looks a bit like Italy and Greece.




Now that we took your breath away with those photos. Here is Auckland. It only took us a few hours to find the first of three starbucks in Auckland. We had our first experience with Sushi on a convayer belt. It was actually really cool. You pay based on your plates, different plate patterns cost different amounts. Better make sure to keep those straight. Cheers!