Quick Update

Hi all! Just a quick update from an internet cafe in Nelson, NZ. We spent the last week tooling around the south part of the North Island...seeing freaky glowworm caves in Waitomo, beautiful Lake Taupo, and two days in the stinky, mud-bubbling, earth-steaming geothermal area of Rotorua. The highlight was our Zorbing experience, a truly NZ thing where they put you in a big plastic ball and you roll downhill in it like a hamster (check it out - Google "Zorb"). Pix to come when we get back to civilization....

Yesterday we took the ferry to the South Island - a three hour tour on the ferry which was more like a little cruise ship, with a kids playground, and several restaurants. None of this was needed because the scenery was phenominal! Now we are in the "sunniest spot in NZ", Nelson, which is in some kind of rainshadow and the sun always shines - a welcome event for us as we have chosen to visit NZ in a winter with record-setting rain!

Itinerary: stay in Nelson a few days to enjoy the sun, then off to see dolphins on the East Coast, and fly back to Auckland next week. Won't make it all the way to Queenstown, which is where the most dramatic Lord-of-The_Rings type scenery is....the drives are too long and the winter weather is too unpredictable . But, as they say here, no worries. We'll just have to come back in the summer!