We had planned to go to Alaska for vacation but did not get our tickets in time. We had the time and the money saved up for two years, so we switched plans and decided to go to New Zealand and Australia instead. We left November 8^th from the San Jose Airport to Los Angeles. There was some concern with canceled reservations that were soon cleared up. We left Los Angeles at 8:30 p.m. on Air New Zealand. Eight hours later our first stop was in Papeete, Tahiti for a crew change. After five hours we arrived in Aukland at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, November 10^th (time changes etc). The temperature was in the 70s and the sun was shining. We picked up our rental car, a Honda Civic, and found our motel and checked in and went to our room and set down our bags. We looked at each other and said “Now that we are here, what do we do now”???”

        With it being Sunday morning, we looked in the phone book and found an LDS church. He talked to a gentleman and got the time and place which happened to be close by. So we went, it was not an affluent ward, but it was sure rich in love! The congregation was about half white and half Maori. Jack was asked to give the prayer in Sunday School and I was asked in the Relief Society.

        After church a young couple by the name of Neal and Kathy Frodsham invited us to their home for dinner. Kathy prepared a lovely dinner of lamb, veggies and kumara, which is an ancient Maori sweet potato. It was very good. After dinner they drove us on a mini tour of Aukland. They own a furniture manufacturing business in Aukland. Neal is originally from Seattle. (He named his business “The Seattle Wood Works”.) So that was our first day in New Zealand.

        On Monday we drove around and did a little bit of shopping. We had an invitation for Monday night from another young couple, Annetta and Graham Scott and their two children. We had another lovely dinner and a nice visit. Graham helped us map out places to see. From day one, we met very nice people from all over, receiving pointers of things to see and places to stay.

        While in Aukland we visited a war memorial museum and learned a lot about the Maori people. Leaving Aukland we headed north. New Zealand consists of a North and South Island. The vegetation on North Island is very green and lush with lots of tropical citrus crops. They do not have any native animals, so all were brought in. They do have a lot of native birds, some really weird ones. There were no wild animal and no snakes. New Zealand has everything from tropics to glaciers. I wish I had room to describe the beauty and the differences we found there. There are so many places and things, it is going to be hard to keep this short.

The Bay of Islands.

        Our first stop after Aukland was Paihia at the Bay of Islands. We took a cruise boat out to the island. We saw so many interesting places of history dating back to Captain Cook's days. We drove over to Kerikeri for the night. We went on a tract (hiking trail) before breakfast.

        It was in Kerikeri that some hot shot hit and run driver wrecked our car. He passed us on a double yellow line with a third car coming at us, crunching us. An eyewitness followed him and got his license number for us. We couldn't make a police report at the time, the only policeman in town was on holiday.

The monument to the Opononi Dolphin

        We both liked Kerikeri very much and wouldn't mind living there. We could have gotten used to that lifestyle very quickly. We drove back over to Paihia to get another car. This one a Mitsubishi. While in this area we toured the Treaty House, a Maori Meeting House, a Maori Village, and the oldest stone building in New Zealand.

        We then went to Opononi, a small village on the west side of New Zealand on the Hokianga Harbor on the Tasman Sea. It is a very small place with a neat history. Back in 1953/54, a dolphin came into the harbor and swam with the swimmers, letting them ride on his back. Later he become beached in the rocks and died. They have a darling monument of him.

        We headed south along the Tasman Sea. We were a fair distance from the sea but were high enough that we could still see it. We traveled about 30 miles on a gravel road which is known as metal roads. We traveled through a national park that has a great many Keri trees which are native to New Zealand. We did stop to look at the largest of these trees. These were the trees used by the Maori's for their canoes. We drove back to Aukland and did a little shopping. There was no other way around it to get out. These two island or only two thirds the size of California, with a population of three million.

The New Zealand Temple

        We then proceeded towards Hamilton and Temple View. We had made advance reservations for the Temple View Apartments. They are owned by the Church and the requirements are: a temple recommend, and you have to do two sessions each day that you are there. We stayed there from Friday to Monday. We did two sessions Saturday morning.

        Sunday morning we went to a church at the church college (high School). I would love to tell about the temple and the beautiful area, the people we meet there and the history of it, but there just isn't room. After church we took a short ride to a small town on the Tasman Coast called Raglan where we had fish and chips in a small tea house. We met a nice couple that told us of more places to see. We met them back in Hamilton and they showed us around a very beautiful rose park, and another park that runs along the Waikato River.

        On Monday morning we headed for our next destination, Rotorua, which is a tourist town with a lot to see there. We rode a tram up to a high mountain to another tea house where we had lunch. We had an excellent view of Rotorua, the lake. It is located in the surrounding area.

Some woolly friends

        Later we went to the Agrodome where we learned the history of how sheep were brought into New Zealand. Here we saw 19 different breeds of top rams, how they are sheared, and saw how the dogs work with the sheep. We then went to a water garden with streams full of fantastic looking trout. Parks, gardens and golf courses are plentiful in New Zealand. For an evening of entertainment we went to a Maori feast and concert. The food was smoked eel, wild boar, venison, lamb, different kinds of fish, chicken, and all kinds of fruits and vegetabless. The concert was wonderful, they have such beautiful voices, (I noticed that in church). They danced and showed us the games they play. The evening ended with a dance where a few people from the audience were picked to participate to dance the last dance. I was picked to dance, what fun!!! As a parting gesture we rubbed nose's twice. That means they really like you.

One of the geysers at Rotorua

        Rotorua is also where the geysers are. It looks and smells a lot like Yellowstone Park only on a much smaller scale. We planned on going to some wildlife parks but woke up to heavy rain. I wanted to see the kiwi birds! We saw the Kiwi but got soaked skin deep. We missed out on some other attractions but it was raining and we had to move on.

        Our next stop was Napier, a town located on the Pacific side of the North Island. We enjoyed a wonderful evening there. A bit of history about Napier. In 1931 Napier was destroyed by a killer earthquake. Land came up from the sea and what used to be an island is now part of the town. When they rebuilt they had more land to build on. It is a beautiful town stretched along beaches and beach parks with lovely monuments each with a meaning. Throughout all of New Zealand every town and city no matter how small has a monument to their World War I and II dead.

        As time was flying, it was now time to head for Wellington and to the South Island. It poured down rain plus high winds all the way, our tempers flared a little as finding our way in those conditions with poorly marked roads was not easy. Wellington, was an interesting city, very modern, windy like Chicago, and like San Francisco built on hills. The rain let up so we were able to do some sightseeing. We woke up to a sunshiny day and a little sad for we were going to leave the North Island in a few hours. Our travels there were so beautiful and we made so many friends along the way. We were told that South Island was more beautiful but we found them about equal. But most of all it was the people that made it beautiful!

        We arrived at the ferry dock, dropped off our car and took the 10:00 ferry to Picton, picked up our third car, a Nissan, and started out on the scenic route to Nelson. Yep. Rain! After getting to our motel, we did what all New Zealander's do on Friday night. Go Shopping! Friday night is late shopping for all of New Zealand. It was still raining the next morning but in spite of the rain, we hiked to the top of a very high hill. It took us 30 minutes to reach the top. At the top was a marker indicating the very center of New Zealand.

        We then headed for Greymouth. With the weather being so nasty, we made very few stops. The rough water along the coast line was awesome. We stopped at a very nice motel that had an excellent restaurant, that is where we celebrated our 7^th wedding anniversary with a very nice venison dinner.

        We backtracked for about an hour to see the pancake rocks and blow holes. It was well worth it. Still heading south we stopped in the town of Hokitika where we visited a Greenstone factory (jade). We bought a pair of jade earrings, a pair of cuff links and matching tie tack.

        We continued on to Franz Josef where we stayed the night. In the evening, we took a long walk. We walked down the middle of the main road for an hour and not a car went by. The only thing we saw were cows that came to the fence to say “hello”.

        On November 25^th we started the day with a helicopter flight up into the mountains, I lucked out and was able to sit in front with the pilot. The flight took us to and landed on a glacier where we were able to see part of Mt .Cook.

        An English couple that were on the flight invited us to their caravan (small motor home) for tea and biscuits. We hiked some more tracts, talked to more people, and hiked into Lake Matheson. It was so beautiful!

        We then headed for Queenstown, 404 kilometers way, so we started out at 7:00 am. By noon we had only gone 150 kilometers. There was so many places to stop and see. There were so many beautiful beaches. We drove though a valley we named the Valley of Falls. Every direction we looked were waterfalls of all sizes. You just have to see it! As we traveled along, the general appearance of the landscape began to change from a lush green to a dry green and then looked more like Nevada. We saw lots of sheep stations as we approached Queenstown.

Our boat ride on the Shotover River

        The first thing we did was to take a jet boat ride up the Shotover River. What a fantastic ride. We took another tram ride up a mountain for lunch where had a great view of Queenstown (and the lake 52 miles long 3 miles wide). After lunch we rode an old old steamer, the T.S.S. Earnslaw: Lady of the Lake to a sheep station. It covered 100,000 acres with 22,000 sheep, 2,500 beef cattle, and 200 deer. I know because I counted them all! The trip back was just so much fun. The crew entertained us with banjo music and song. They handed out songbooks and we all sang. I hated for that trip to end. After retuning to Queenstown we had a pheasant dinner at a neat place called Roaring Megs. It was the first time that Jack had ever eaten pheasant.

A kea bird

        The next days trip was to Milford Sound. We got started at 6:00 a.m. We stopped in Te Anau for breakfast and to pick up our Milford tickets. The trip was unbelievable! The view staggers the imagination. The kea bird liked this area and we saw a lot of them. In some places, the only place to look was up.

        Arriving in Milford at 1:30 we boarded the Fiordland Flyer, a new ship of 5 weeks. The trip on Milford Sound and out to the Tasman Sea was awesome. We returned to Te Anau just in time to book the last boat to Glow Worm Caves. We traveled the ten miles across Lake Te Anau. This was a cavern with the river running through it. We rode on small boats in the dark, billions of tiny pinpoint lights glowed over head.

        When we got back to Te Anau all the eating places was closed so we had to settle for the “Burger Bus”. The lake was so clear you could see the pebbles on the bottom. It looked like a mirror. As is all the lakes in New Zealand, their water is 99.98 percent pure. I saw a sea-plane pilot take a drink from the lake. They are not bothered with pollution, or agricultural diseases, and use little or no pesticides, and there are no billboards to mar the beautiful countryside. There are between 70 and 80 million sheep and we must of seen at least 60 million of them.

Lake Manapourie

        A few miles from Te Anua was Manapourie located on Lake Manapourie. It was even more beautiful than Te Anua. We took lots of photos and went on our way arriving in Dunedin in time to tour a museum, but our main thing was a drive along Cliff Drive. It was very scary at times. This took us past an old castle, and on to a penguin nesting area and a seal colony. It was amusing to watch those little penguins in their tuxedos jumping out of the Pacific Ocean up on to the steep cliffs. Then there were the seals. Their colony was separated by cliffs from the penguins. The big fat seals just laid on the beach. Lazy bums.

Yellow Eyed Penguin of South Island

We followed a very scenic route along the water back to our motel. Once again we were late for dinner so had to have fish and chips.

        The next morning we were able to go to church. The church was only five minutes from our motel. It was a lovely new building built as a state center. Again we met so many very friendly people. About 3 percent of New Zealand is LDS about equal between Maori and white, with the biggest percent on the North Island. After church we hit the road again stopping in Ashburton for dinner. Before leaving the next day we decided we would like a spinning wheel, seeing that they were manufactured there, so we helped the economy. We bought one and had it shipped home.

        We drove over to Christchurch, our departure point for Australia. We spent three days there. We visited a wildlife park where we drove the car into the lion enclosure and watched the park attendees feed the lions. What table manners. We kept the windows closed because we didn't want to be dessert. We did other sight seeing in and around Christchurch. We had so much rain on the North Island. Almost every where we went, we got rained on. We didn't let that stop us.

        December 5^th. I really was sad. I had fallen in love with New Zealand. The country and the people. it is one fantastic place. The New Zealanders have a saying. “God made the world, then He made New Zealand.” I can believe it!