Hello New Zealand

Instead of taking a direct flight 17 hours from Melbourne to Los Angeles, we stopped off in Auckland to have a week of fun on the north island in New Zealand. We are excited about this leg of the trip because in addition to breaking up the excruciating travel, we also get so see one of the most beautiful parts of the world we’ve ever been to.

We are in Paihia, which is about four hours north of Auckland. We are staying at a really great house that looks out on the Bay of Islands. The view is amazing! The Bay of Islands reminds us of the San Juan Islands (in Washington State), except that the water is warm and bright blue.

Today we rode a ferry from Paihia to a cute little town called Russell. We enjoyed walking around Russell. While we were there we had lunch in a café, skipped rocks in the beautiful water, and got ice cream cones. Then we rode the ferry back to Paihia.

Tomorrow we are going on a boat trip through the islands. The company that runs the boat trip guarantees that we will see dolphins. We are even allowed to swim with the dolphins if we want.

In two days we are going sea kayaking around the islands. Then we are going to pack up and drive to Auckland. Along the way we are going to stop at some famous old growth forests and beaches.