Ok, I'm well behind on my postings, but we were constantly busy and I'm just now starting to get caught up.  We left our house on February 3rd and due to crossing the international date line we arrived Auckland on February 5th and our fantastic adventure started then. After the 17-hour nonstop flight from Chicago, we were ready to walk for a bit. So, we went to a site with which we were familiar called One Tree Hill in Auckland about 20 minutes from the airport. When we lived here, One Tree Hill was a lovely park filled with sheep grazing, but the sheep have been removed so it doesn't look quite as manicured now.

We stopped and bought a chilly bin (ice chest), then got groceries and went to our first overnight stay.  The next morning, we went to the Hobbiton movie set and toured it.  For those of you who like The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings, this place was quite nice.  I'm not a fan of the Hobbit, but touring the set was a real treat.

After the Hobbiton movie set, we went to the Waitomo Glow Worm caves where you take a boat ride through a cave where you see thousands of glow worms. From there, we went on down to New Plymouth on the west coast and hiked up Mount Egmont/Mount Taranaki vista view while seeing some new birds along the way.

Something unusual in New Plymouth on the walking/biking path at the ocean front, was a Wind Wand that measures the wind strength based on how much the wand bends.

From New Plymouth, we drove on down to Wellington to spend the night. The next morning, we boarded the ferry to take us and our van across the Cook Straight to Picton in the South Island. The skies were clear, and the water was calm. This was a delightful trip.

When we drove off the ferry in Picton, we drove on down to Kaikoura for the night. On the way, we passed a beach area where there were hundreds of seals, both adults and baby seals.

We had a delightful house in Kaikoura that was directly across the road from someone who had a container house. After striking up a conversation with the owners, they invited us in to see their home.

Christchurch was our next stop and it has changed dramatically since we were last there because they had an earthquake in 2013 that destroyed a large portion of the city.  However, we took the gondolas up to the top of the city to get a vista view.

One place that was a vivid memory for us was the Avon River through the city.

This is a restored hop on/hop off trolly car that we used throughout the city.

This catches me up through Christchurch.  The next posting will go on down to Dunedin.