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Most likely I'll post some pics as part of whatever update I give, and given that there is no way all three of my daughters will think that they look good in the same photo at the same time, pics will likely be pulled and right there is your incentive to check back every day to see how things actually went before something gets taken down.This section will contain the running commentary from the trip, in regards to the most recent country we have been in. But once I'm able to start the next country, I'll put the historical posts in the "Old Updates - XYZ" tab above. This all assumes I (or one of my kids) will be able to figure out how to make this website work.

If you want to read about the first 28 days and our time in Italy, then click here.

If you want to read about our time in Turkiye, then click here.

If you want to read about our safari in Kenya, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach vacation in Tanzania, then click here.

If you want to read about our amusement park/desert experience in the U.A.E, then click here.

If you want to read about our desert/beach experience in Oman, then click here.

If you want to read about our jungle ruins experience in Cambodia, then click here.

If you want to read about our elephant/beach experience in Thailand, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach/city experience in Australia, then click here.

The Journey Continues - New Zealand

Perth to Auckland

Auckland to Queenstown

To jump directly to one of our days in New Zealand, click here:

DAY 156

Christchurch to Wellington

Wellington to Auckland

I just realized that I didn't include a link to our last day in Australia when I posted it. If you missed that post then click here: Last Day in Australia.

DAY 149

We are halfway through our trip already! It’s amazing to think how quickly it went. There is still so much more we are going to see, but I know that will fly by too.

It is also our last day in Australia, so I figured that I would talk a little about the driving experience. Driving on the left side of the road has been an experience, but really its driving on the left side of the car that throws off your perspective. I have been a lot more focused on where I am in the lanes while I’m driving and as a result, driving is a much more draining experience. The one thing about the roads that is different is all of the roundabouts that they have there. At one point, Keira questioned if there were more roundabouts than people in Busselton. Basically, they seem to be trying to eliminate traffic lights. At first I hated them, but now I think that they do tend to speed along traffic, since you don’t have to sit a red light if there are no cars coming in the other direction.

We drove from Busselton to Perth and ate at the same pizza restaurant we ate at twice when we stayed there. Then we picked up Lily’s laptop from the Apple Store, that luckily was fixed and returned before we left, a great relief for me. Then we dropped off the rental car and went to the airport.

Its a 6.5 hour flight to Auckland from Perth, and we all got business class seats for the flight. We stayed a little while in the Air New Zealand lounge before the flight then boarded. Liam was a bit upset that I wasn’t sitting next to him, but luckily we got seats across from each other that calmed him a bit.

The problem with business class is that they serve dinner and breakfast which takes an hour or so on both the front end and back end of the flight. Combine that with the fact that the actual flight time is less than the stated 6.5 hours so the flight can land on time, you get less than 4 hours of the flight to try to sleep.

I had Liam skip his dinner since he didn’t really want to eat any of it anyway, so I set him up in his bed while they were serving the dinner. To be honest, I was a bit in the stewardess' way as they were serving, but in my defense, the seats were the worst lie down seats I have seen. You had to hold down a button, and the seat flips over and lies down flat. Then you have to set up bedding over the seat. It isn’t clear to me why the seat doesn’t just slide down flat instead of flipping over, but the way its set up means that making the bed is a big endeavor. But eventually I got it flat and Liam got about 3.5 hours of sleep. Meanwhile, the button to lay the bed flat is on the outside of the pod, and I mistakenly pushed Megan's button to lie Liam down. Then I mistakenly pushed a stranger's button and moved her seat while I was trying to do my bed! Oops.

I realize that the few paragraphs above are all first world (or first class) problems, so I apologize for complaining about it.

New Zealand is just as paranoid about letting anything related to plants, animals, etc into their country as Australia is and you have to fill out a declarations page disclosing that you are bringing ANY food in - it even mentions snacks from the plane as something to declare. Since we were doing OIT with Liam and give him nuts every night, we have 10 month supply of nuts with us, so I declared that and went through that declarations line while the others went through "nothing to declare". There are no big Ubers that can seat 6 people so Lily, Megan and Liam went back to the hotel and Keira and Elenna waited for me. When I got to the customs agent after about 35 minutes, they waved me through since it was all prepackaged (which I assumed would happen, but they make a really big deal out of it in the declarations page).

We got to the hotel and checked in around 8:30am. The girls took a nap in their room, and Megan took a nap in her room. Liam was somehow wired and wide awake after his 3.5 hours of sleep, so I took him out to find some breakfast to let Megan sleep. Robin was coming in around 10, so I decided to wait for her so I could get her into the girl’s room (you needed a room card to use the elevator).

Liam and I went to a grocery store and ate some donuts, and then we walked around and caught some Pokemon. Eventually, Robin arrived and I got her into her room and then Liam and I went back to our room and I took a nap. Liam said he was too awake, so I let him watch his iPad.

The plan was to go out to lunch at 11:45, but then Megan woke me up at 12:20, and Liam was sleeping and the girls were all sleeping as well. So we went out to eat around 1pm. We went to Ponsby Rd since its supposed to be a hip place to eat, but in the daylight it wasn’t anything spectacular to see. But we did eat at a pretty good chicken place.

We booked a tour of Weta Workshop - which is a movie special effects company.

"Weta" is a New Zealand bug that is very ugly.

They did effects work on Lord of the Rings.

Golem liked my ring.

They brought us through three different areas showing 3 different movies that they worked on/had concepts for. The first place showed the fake costumes that aliens wore, and mechanical special effects.

It was pretty neat to see the special effects workshop.

The film they were working on was a horror film about aliens, and we got to dissect an alien.

It was like the classic game Operation - but with an alien.

The second showed backgrounds and green screens.

Keira was in front of a Dinosaur/human world.

The third showed a film set and demonstrated how they make smaller statues look giant.

This picture wasn't done with the forced perspective.

After a quick break at the hotel, we went to the Sky Tower - a tall tower with panoramic views of the city. First we went to the observatory and had a great view of the city.

Auckland is famous for its bay and the sailboats.

Then we went to a restaurant on the 52nd floor. It was a revolving restaurant so we got a panoramic view while we ate and timed it well for the sunset.

There was a great view from the revolving restaurant.

We also celebrated Lily's birthday while we were there. It is close to her birthday, but also, she likes celebrating her birthday at restuarants, so if there isn't anyone else where their birthday is close, we say its Lily's birthday.

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You only turn 16 once. Unless you are Lily!

DAY 150

I got up at 10:15 and went to the airport to pick up the rental car. When I got there, the people in front of me were informed that they were at the wrong Europcar location and should have gone to the international terminal instead of the domestic one. This was despite the fact that they were explicitly told to go to this one. I was starting to worry, because my email said the same thing (to explicitly come to this one). They told the couple that the car would be brought over, then I talked to them and they told me the same thing - wait there and it would be brought over.

Eventually, the car came and I headed back. I parked next to the hotel, we loaded up the car with our luggage and then walked out and got some lunch in the city before heading over to Rotorura. The drive was almost 3 hours, and after Lily lost the battle for the auxiliary cord (ie control of the music) on our ride from Busselton to Perth, she was awarded control of the music to Rotorua. Her music is generally pretty good, albeit a bit slow for my taste (I want music with a good beat, that I can dance to), but she kept the car ride lively by explaining something about every song she put on (what it was about, what it reminded her off, why she put it on, etc.).

We got to our Ramada Inn (see everything isn’t first class?) and Megan checked in, but it was a reservation I made, so she wasn’t sure if we had two rooms or not and only got one key. So we went in, and it was an apartment with enough beds where we could have crammed in with people sleeping two to every bed and Liam on a couch, but we started to wonder if we had a second room booked. It was taking me a while to log into my Expedia account, knowing that I would be blamed if I booked a place without enough space, and before I could, they called and asked if we were going to pick up the other key. So crises averted.

We went out to eat in the city of Rotorua which is a nice little downtown area, maybe similar to the restaurant area of Montclair. The food was ok, but the atmosphere was good as we got to sit outside.

The plan for the night was to to a tree top bridge course. Unfortunately, Lily and Elenna are deathly afraid of rope bridges, so they decided not to go. We thought that would work and they could watch Liam, but once Liam heard that we were leaving him behind, he wanted to go, so he joined us.

The walk was at 9:40 and the place was lighted up throughout the forest. Megan had read that there could be long lines, so we bought a fast pass, and got right on. But they had a giant screen showing the movie Cars, for the kids who had to wait in line. We heard them say that the wait time was 90 minutes! And this is why its good to do some research before you go somewhere. Or in my case, have a wife who does research.

It was still very dark, but they had cool looking lights strategically placed around the forest to give enough light and something to look at. Liam was initially afraid to walk, and had me lead the way.

It was kind of cool, like walking through the forest moon of Endor.

But by the second half of the walk, he was leading the way, walking confidently and not using his hands to hold the rails.

After a little time to warm up, Liam confidently left us in the dust.

I also wasn’t using the handrails, but more because the bridge was so narrow, it was kind of hard for me to have my hands to my sides - it was easier to walk a little angled. The trip took about 35 minutes of walking and Robin, who is afraid of heights did quite well. She said that it was in part due to the fact that it was dark and hard to see how far off the ground we were.

It was a cool experience, although I definitely recommend getting the fast pass tickets.

DAY 151

Elenna (her decision) and Liam (too young) stayed home the next morning while the rest of us went ziplining. Both Robin and Lily are a bit afraid of heights, so the rest of us were impressed that they were coming and I was interested to see how they would do.

We got geared up and headed over to the zipline course. We walked into the woods and after about 10 seconds of walking, we were completely surrounded by trees, to the point that you wouldn’t even know that there was a large road 100 yards away. The forest was pretty cool - large trees and ferns everywhere. I joked to Keira the night before that the the tree walk would have been cooler if they added dinosaurs to it - these forests really made you feel like you were in some former time given the size of the trees and the dense underbrush.

It didn't take long until we felt like we were deep into the forest.

We climbed up the stairs to the first zip line and they asked for volunteers and Keira was the first to respond, and I was a little bummed because I should have gone first to get the best pictures. We all got across without a problem.

Ziplining is always a good time.

The only time that Lily said that she was actually afraid was when she was going over the small rope bridges between a couple of the platforms (its not clear to me why zipping through the sky isn’t scary when a bridge is, but that is why she didn’t join us the night before).

Lily went from being afraid of walking on elevated bridges to doing this!

Meanwhile, Robin had no trouble with the ziplines either, so both of them acquitted themselves quite well on the trip.

You wouldn't know that anyone was afraid of heights by what they did.

Later that day we went to Te Puia, a geothermal spring and cultural center.

Everyone gave Te Puia a thumbs up.

They showed us some Maori artwork and a school where they teach them carving and weaving skills.

The tour was interesting, as Te Puia taught traditional skills to youth, who went back to their villages to teach others.

They also showed us a pen where they keep Kiwi, in an attempt to increase their numbers and introduce them into the wild ( no cameras allowed). Then we got to tour the hot springs. It included mud pool areas that were so hot that they were bubbling.

The hot springs erupt pretty much every hour, so we got a good look at them. These mud pools were way to hot to bathe in.

After that, we went to a dinner buffet, where we were introduced to the dessert Pavlova which was a hit. After the buffet we went to a Maori show, where they did a ceremonial welcome to our group and then a performance of songs and dances.

The cultural show was neat - much better than some of the other dancing performances we have seen on this trip. I noticed Megan taking a bunch of pictures of the male warriors.

DAY 152

The next day we went to a geothermal hot spring, but this time to do a mud bath and soak in the pools. It smelled of sulphur, so instead of using our own clothes we rented bathing suits and towels. The mud bath was nice and everyone except Liam covered ourselves in mud. It was mostly a hot pool with a couple of baskets of mud that you spread on yourselves (most of us assumed it was a giant pit of mud that we would be sitting in, but this was probably better because eventually we would want all of the mud off).

Our skin was shiny brand new after our mud baths.

After a shower to get the mud off, we went into the pools. They had pools of differing heat to try out.

The geothermal pools were in surrounded by actual geothermal hot springs, creating a cool backdrop. But it also meant that people on tours could look in at us.

There was also a cold plunge pool that Liam like going into and he would pull us each individually to go in. It was a bit like jumping in our lake in the winter and then going back to our hot tub.

In the parking lot we saw Scooby Doo's van, but how it got there is a mystery.

After that, we drove to our hotel in Ortorohanga in a 2 hour drive, where we basically checked in, dropped off our stuff, before getting back into the car for a hour long drive to Hobbiton. Yes, that Hobbiton in Middle Earth.

Not everyone was a fan of Tolkein, but everyone had fun.

In the introduction to the website I joked that I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to find enough time to watch the 300 hours of Lord of the Rings films and we didn’t - everyone saw the first “Hobbit” movie and Lily and Elenna saw the first “Lord of the Rings” movie, but no one liked them enough to keep watching them. But at least they did see the Shire on the screen and had a little sense of what was going on.

Liam probably doesn't know this wizard's name, but he is always up for a photo.

We parked at the gift shop, and then they bussed us over to the farm where the scenes regarding Hobbiton were filmed. It was a really interesting trip - they did a good job of explaining about the movie, how the location was chosen and behind the scenes details on the filming. And of course we got to see a lot of Hobbit holes.

There were a bunch of Liam-sized houses.

We even got to go inside one, although it wasn’t somewhere anything was actually filmed. In the movie, the outdoor scenes were filmed there, but once they went inside, everything was filmed in a studio in Wellington.

There were all sorts of details to make you feel like you were in a real Hobbit hole.

Apparently, the movie team flew across New Zealand by helicopter, looking for the right spot before settling on that farm. They filmed the Lord of the Rings movies there and then tore it down. But for the next few years, people would sneak onto the farm trying to get a peak at things, but there was nothing to see. So when they filmed The Hobbit, the decided to build it as a permanent set, so they could do tours.

They added a bunch of permanent buildings to the set when they filmed "The Hobbit".

Years after the filming, they turned the facade of the Green Dragon into a real restaurant, where we ate dinner. They let Liam open the curtains to the dining area, but he didn’t quite understand his role, so he more or less stood in the doorway. But they served a really good spread.

Hobbits do like eating. We enjoyed a first dinner at the Green Dragon.

Then they gave us lanterns and we walked back through the village, as they told us a few more stories before we loaded the bus and headed back to our car. Then we drove another hour back to our hotel.

We got to see another magical sunset, and then had a night time stroll through the Shire.

DAY 153

After the late night the night before, we slept in. We forgot to put our “Do Not Disturb” sign out, so at 9am we got a knock at the door, and I rushed to the door to tell them to come back later. I was now thoroughly awake, but it didn’t seem to wake up Keira or Liam. We went out to eat at noon. Elenna had been asking to go to Subway for the past few weeks, once she realized that they serve Doritos in the Australia and New Zealand ones. Megan doesn’t like Subway for some reason (it seems to me to be one of the more healthy fast food places), but since we go to Mexican restaurants (which Elenna doesn’t like) we decided to do Subway this time.

Then we headed off to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. The glow worm caves were one of the highlights of Megan and my honeymoon, so we wanted everyone to see it. The problem is that since we were planning the trip while we were traveling, we didn’t make reservations for the cave tour in time and it was sold out by the time we started looking two weeks out (on our honeymoon, we made reservations the day before at the hostel). Megan, Keira, Lily and I were going to do a bit more adventurous tour while Robin and Elenna weren’t up for that, and Liam was too young, so we needed to find a more low key way for them to see the sights. Eventually, we found a tour that went from Auckland to the caves and back, and they agreed to let Robin, Elenna and Liam join for just the cave part (at a much higher price than if we had been able to buy just the cave tour, but worth it nonetheless).

We dropped off those three with their guide and then headed over to our tour. They had us get dressed in wetsuits, since the water was about 55-60 degrees. Then, they had us practicing jumping into a river and landing on our tubes, before we walked into the caves.

We had wetsuits, but it was still a little shocking jumping into the cold river.

The tour involved going through the caves, walking through the rivers, jumping off of waterfalls and tubing through the caves (similar to what Megan and I did 20 years earlier, but Megan and I repelled down into the caves through a crevasse). I looked around at the group that we were with and if if we weren’t twice the age of the next oldest person, we were close. But I guess that means that we are just young at heart.

Jumping off of a waterfall was a big splash with me.

It was a lot of fun jumping off of the waterfalls, even if I was a little worried that jumping backwards into the river meant that I would accidentally jump a little to the side and bang my head against a rock wall (being taller than average, I’m constantly worried about hitting my head somewhere. In fact, in some parts I was hoping that they would dig out a bit more cave, since I was half crawling through some areas).

Climbing up waterfalls wasn't as fun as jumping off of them.

The best parts were where they would have us turn off the lights on our helmets and we would slowly go down the river looking up at the glow worms. Apparently they are the larvae of some insect that glows so it attracts bugs and then it eats them. So beautiful to look at, but not to think about in detail.

Sometimes the cave ceiling was 30 or 40 feet high, but sometimes you had to lay back to fit through the passageway.

But as you look up at the cave ceiling, its like you are looking at the night sky. You would almost think that you could see specific constellations.

After that, we took some showers to warm up. The water itself was about 55-60 degrees and in the wetsuits it wasn’t that bad, but after about 90 minutes in it, we were all starting to feel a bit cold. We drove back to the hotel and met with everyone to go out to dinner.

We walked to a restaurant that the hotel owner recommended, but the service was incredibly slow. We were there waiting for food for over an hour when Megan heard the table behind us complain that they had been waiting for over 90 minutes and so she left and went to the store to buy some food for Keira who was hungry and we are generally in constant fear might faint at some point. Eventually, the food came and it was ok, but not worth the wait.

DAY 154

We left our hotel by 9:30 to drive back up to Auckland so we could fly to Queenstown, which is in the South Island (if you didn’t know, New Zealand is predominantly made up of 2 islands). I dropped off the rest of them and then I returned to the car rental area which was a little away from the terminal. After I returned the car, I walked over with my bags and was about 15 minutes behind them in line to go through security.

Driving in the North Island has been pretty similar to driving in Australia - a lot of roundabouts. Meanwhile, it was quite windy - there was rarely a a straight road to drive on. Every once in a while, there would be a yellow caution sign with a lower speed limit around a corner and at one point I wondered aloud why they put a sign there, when there could have been a similar sign at any point in the prior hour of driving.

It was a two hour flight to Queenstown and then we got a rental van to go to the hotel. Unlike the last van (which was a normal minivan), this was more of a passenger van, which had more room for everyone to sit comfortably, but at the same time it made driving a bit more difficult. This came to a head when I had to park the van in the garage and it took a bit of time. Even driving into the garage we weren't sure if it would fit and I think that I did the thing that everyone does as they drive in - I ducked, as if my head being a little lower might somehow make the entire car be a little shorter.

Everyone was tired, so we ordered in some chinese food and then watched “Cheaper by the Dozen” before going to bed.

We slept in the next day and then went out to eat lunch at a place around the corner. Then we walked around the town and it was a cute downtown area with lots of restaurants and shops. The backdrop was beautiful with the city on the lake surrounded by mountains.

Then Megan, Keira, Robin and I went on a winery/brewery tour. It was a lot of fun and even though I don’t drink beer or wine, I had a good time.

Keira was able to take advantage of the 18 year old drinking age in New Zealand.

Our tour guide asked if anyone likes Lord of the Rings and Megan said I do (which I do, but I wouldn’t say that I am a huge fan). At the second stop, the tour guide pulled me aside and then opened up the back of the van and gave me a replica of the sword that Aragon used. I had read the books on this trip, so I knew enough to make a joke about how you couldn’t even see where the sword was reforged.

I look just like Aragon.

After visiting 3 places, we all had had enough to drink. We got home and then cooked pasta for dinner before going to bed.

Day 155

We bought tickets to take a gondola ride up a nearby mountain and then have lunch at the restaurant there. I remember doing this 20 years earlier and being a bit underwhelmed when we did it. There was also bungy jumping from the deck but Megan wouldn’t let Keira bungy jump unless her neurologist said it was ok, and Keira finally got around to asking and was told it was better not to. This bummed her out in theory, but Megan and I wondered if she really wanted to bungy jump or just said that, since we would have assumed that someone who really wanted to go, would have asked the neurologist as soon as Megan made that a prerequisite - not 3 months later. She also never took us up on our offer to pay for her to jump off of the Auckand Sky Tower, which seemed more like a free fall (which slowed you as you reached the bottom) rather than a bungy (which snapped you back up when you went as far down as you could).

As we went up the gondola, we saw a number of people paragliding off of the mountain, which looked pretty cool. As we got to the top, the view was amazing, and I was kind of surprised that I was underwhelmed by it in my memory.

The gondola ride was fun, and the view was great.

We got to the restaurant a little early, and I checked us in. In order to check in, you had to walk by the paragliding place, and Keira said that she would do paragliding. I told her to go to the desk and see if they had availability. But Keira wouldn’t do it, saying that she was afraid to talk to strangers. Once again, I figured that Keira was just all talk (I figured that signing up for the paragliding should be the least scary part of the whole thing), but then Lily said that she would do it.

This pretty much floored me - Lily went from not going on an elevated walkway that her 5 year old brother confidently did, to doing ziplining, and jumping off waterfalls in caves, and now willing to do paragliding. So although they didn’t want to see if there was availability, I felt like now I had to go and see. Luckily, they said that they could squeeze us in right after lunch.

We enjoyed a nice brunch buffet with a spectacular view. Since it was Lily’s birthday, they brought us some cake.

Happy Birthday Lily!

Then, Keira, Lily and I went up to the paragliding station. They had us walk up the hill and introduced us to the people who would be going up with us. We were behind three people in the queue, and they had their parachutes all laid out and ready to go. My guide explained that we could jump off if we had a wind blowing towards us or no wind at all, but we couldn’t take off if the wind was at our back. After a few minutes, they all decided that we should try a different jump off point.

Our guide walked up, but told us to wait for the dune buggy to bring us up. I was all for walking up with him, but once we went up in the dune buggy, I was glad that we didn’t. It was pretty steep and uneven terrain. They had us wear our helmets in the buggy, which at first seemed a bit strange, but quickly made a lot of sense.

We got to the top and once again the wind wasn’t really cooperating. So I told the story of how Megan and I decided to do an adrenaline adventure in New Zealand 21 years earlier, and decided that hang gliding was the thing. Our guides took us to a mountain, but the wind wasn’t right, so they took us to a second mountain. After waiting there for a while, all geared up, they said the wind wasn’t right and took us to a third mountain. At the third mountain, we waited for a while, and then guide said, “Yeah, I think this is probably fine.” Megan, who was already a bit scared to start, by now was wondering if we were going to jump off because it was safe, or because they wanted to get paid, so she backed out. Meanwhile, I did it (figuring that the guide didn’t want to die either, so he wouldn’t go if it wasn’t safe) and I had an awesome time.

I wasn’t quite sure if this was the type of story I should be telling or not telling to my kids as our guides were debating the wind, but I figured it might encourage them to keep going, rather than giving them an out to give up.

A picture from the second jump off point.

Two other groups took off and then it was my turn. We waited for a while, and then my guide said to go. We started to run down the side of the mountain, but the guide didn’t like the way it was going and yelled to stop. So I dropped down and we landed in a heap. We walked back up the hill to the take off point to try again. But now Keira was ready to go, and they took off before we were set up. Lily got set up behind me.

Take two went much better for us, and we took off. I told the guides that the rest of our family was on the viewing platform, so they made sure that we all did a flyby of the viewing platform on the way down. One problem was that it went Keira, Me, then a random person, then Lily. So its possible that the pictures and videos that they took were of a random person.

The top picture may or may not be one of us.

Paragliding is very much like hang gliding. For me, it was a bit nerve wracking waiting to take off - the whole idea of running down a steep hill and hoping the wind doesn’t change… I mean if you aren’t a little nervous, then you probably aren’t thinking straight.

But once you get into the air, its an amazing feeling. The ride is so smooth, and its so quiet. It doesn’t feel at all like you are in danger. Plus, being strapped in with someone gives you a bit of comfort. But it feels very much like being on a Disney ride, rather than doing something for an adrenaline rush.

Our guides had Go Pro on a selfie stick and took a bunch of pictures of our flights.

Paragliding isn't as scary as you might think.

I watched Keira down below. As we were waiting in line for the gondola we saw a paraglider doing a bunch of quick turns and an actual loop. Robin said “That person is either very good, or completely out of control”. Keira said to me, “If my person asks if I want to do a loop, then I’ll do it.” My guide pointed down to Keira and said, “Do you want to try that?” Keira was going in a bunch of tight circles and from my vantage point, it looked like she wasn’t that far off from the ground and close to hitting buildings. I kind of assumed that the circles were what you had to do to get in a position to land on the rugby field. But apparently, it wasn’t, and my guide started putting us into circles. It was a lot of fun, but again, not terribly scary. Nevertheless, I told our guide that my other daughter would NOT be doing any tricks in the air.

I watched Keira land and she did it flawlessly, which put a bit of pressure on me to do it right, but it ended up being quite easy, with my guide doing pretty much all the work. Then we waited for Liy to land and since there was someone in between us, I had time to get my camera.She also landed without incident.

Lily landed without a problem.

Then we walked back to the gondola and went up again to meet up with the rest of our family so we could go down the luge. Lily was on the fence about going up again, but I said that we should go - I doubted that the luge would match the para gliding, but everyone was waiting for us. Plus, we got another gondola ride out of it. We went over to the area and the luge is basically a go-kart track. It ws actually very similar to a luge ride that they have at the Great Wall of China. Lily and Liam went in the same car for the first two rides before switching to Megan for the last ride. It was a lot of fun.

Lily was glad that we went back up and did some luging.

After that, we split up with Megan, Liam and I going to a library, while the rest of the family went back to the room to relax before dinner. The library was neat, and liam played with some puzzles, and we played Guess Who, and we found some early reader books that he and Megan read.

The library was a good place to spend an hour.

Then we mailed some post cards and on the way back to our hotel, Megan and Liam saw some cool stuff.

I'm sure that Megan appreciates my humor, no matter what she says.

Then we went out for dinner. The downtown area is pretty - with restaurants and shops along the water, and the mountains in the background. Its a really special place.

Queenstown was one of the best cities that we visited.

We went back to the hotel and watched a movie about a 16 year old girl who became the youngest person to sail around the world without help. We also tried 50 different flavors of jelly beans that Robin had bought for us. We did blind taste-testing to see if we could guess the flavor.

I don't think that anyone got more than 11 flavors.

DAY 156

Megan was feeling congested in her ear and after putting some over the counter drops in her ear the night before, felt worse, so she went to see a doctor while the rest of us went to eat breakfast at a chocolate/ice cream place that also served waffles. Liam and i had churros but the waffles also looked good.

The waffles looked good, but nothing looks as good as churros.

Megan spent about 45 minutes and$120 to see a nurse who said to keep doing what she was doing for three days A bit like the US healthcare system, but that was the cost without insurance.

We drove 3 hours to Mt Cook, a place famous for its hiking trails and its remote location which is good for seeing the stars. The drive up was amazing - it winded through mountain ranges, with rivers running by that were a light green color. Then we passed a lake where the water looked like it was in the Caribbean. We passed a lookout point before I realized that it was there, and I told Megan that if we passed this way on our way to Christchurch, then we had to stop and get out and take a better look.

It was on this drive that once again I thought about the drawback to driving. I generally don’t mind driving places, and Megan does more of the planning than I do, so she could use the time to trip plan or catch up with friends. Plus, by now, I had been driving on the left side of the road for over a month, so I would at least initially be better at driving than having her learn. However, as we passed these beautiful scenic landscapes, and I would sneak a quick peek during some straightaway, I would wish that I had more time to take a look and take it all in. I absolutely love the water and the beach, but there is something special about driving through mountains, being up so high, and then still being dwarfed by their peaks.

Every time I drive through an area like this, I think back to fantasy books like Lord of the Rings or Sword of Shannara and think about how those characters would walk places for weeks on end, going over mountains and such, and how difficult that would be in real life. Or I’ll think - "200 years ago- how did people get anywhere?"

After unpacking, we took a walk around the grounds of the resorts before going to dinner. Elenna loves seeing drinks in those giant pitchers, so I saw a fishbowl on the menu and had to order it.

Everything is bigger up in the mountains.

After dinner, Megan, Liam and I went on a hike/Pokemon hunt. I had seen a hike that started behind the main hotel which for some reason stuck out to me despite the description saying that the top of the trail is near the water tanks - which doesn’t sound picturesque. But the hike was great. It went back and forth up the mountain on a windy trail with somewhat steep drop offs, but also a lot of vegetation. At one point, it looked to me like a fairy path or something, as the paths seemed almost built into the trees.

The path looked like any minute some enchanted creature might jump out. I joked with Liam that squirrels had built the path.

The view from the lookout area was beautiful.

There were plenty of Pokemon, but every once in a while, you have to take a look at the views.

After that, we went back and Megan did some math and reading with Liam, while I wrote this blog and the other 4 watched shows on their devices. Then Robin, Megan and I played “sight word go fish” with Liam before we headed off to bed.

DAY 157

We got up around 9am to go out on a hike by 10. The weather app said that it might rain in the afternoon. Our family was in a bit of a war around the right weather app to use. Those of us in the “Weather Channel.com” camp vs those in the default Apple Weather camp. It seemed that Weather Channel.com wanted it to rain, while Apple wanted it to be colder than it actually was. So we often unnecessarily dressed too warm and brought coats (but maybe doing that is what caused the weather to be nice and not rain.)

We started the hike and the location was beautiful - about a 5 minute drive from our hotel, so the mountains were the same ones we could see from our room. But as we walked, we walked past some rivers and over swinging bridges. Robin’s stomach wasn’t feeling well, and she debated even coming on the trip but joined us anyway. But after about 20 minutes, she decided to wait for us - something we felt bad about because it was a 3 hour hike.

It is hard to get over how amazing the views were.

I loved the swinging bridges over the river, but Elenna is deathly afraid of these types of bridges. In her defense, although these were well made, and had netting all around them, they do bounce as people walk on them, and there was always 10-15 people going in either direction at a time. She did all three bridges twice (there and back) and was a real trooper about it, although if you watched her closely, you could see that her hands were clenched into fists as she crossed.

If you look closely, you can see Elenna's balled fists as she conquers her fears and crosses the bridges.

We got to the end and were treated to a view of a glacier lake. The glacier was far off in the distance, at the base of the mountain and covered in dirt, so only part of it was white. In the lake itself was a little iceberg, caused by shelving of the glacier into the lake. We saw a couple of people in bathing suits swimming in the glacier, and we regretted not bringing swim suits. The water wasn’t too cold (at least the part we could touch on the shore) and it was warmer than the weather apps said it would be.

You don't see ice bergs in a lake every day. Unless you live near Mt Cook.

We looked for some rocks that Robin collects (gray rocks with while circle around them), and I skipped a couple of stones in the lake. We ate a little snack to keep our strength up and then started the walk back. It was a 6 mile hike in all. Soon on the way back, Liam said that his stomach was hurting him because he was walking too much. But really, he was just bored after about 2 hours of walking.

Not sure how you can get bored looking at views like this, but if you do, all you have to do is talk about Pokemon and the time flies by.

So if this happens, then all you need to do is get him talking about Pokemon and he gets distracted. I didn’t let him catch Pokemon on this walk - we don’t want to give him a screen every time we do something, and it would slow him down and take forever. As it was, there were a lot of hikers on this trail, and some parts were barely wide enough to walk side by side, so if he was walking while watching my phone, he would have been a disaster.

As we walked back, Liam made a plan for the rest of the day which was to go back to the hotel to eat lunch, then go to the visitor center (which we went to briefly the day before and Liam found some puzzles and was excited to go back there and do the puzzles with Robin.) Then we would go back to the room to “chillax” for a few hours and then go to eat dinner and then watch a My Little Pony movie as a family. That sounded like a full day.

About 5 minutes from the end of the hike, he complained that his feet hurt and he didn’t want to walk anymore, so Megan gave him a piggy back ride back to the car. Although he tired at the end, it was impressive that he could walk 6 miles along the generally (but not always) flat trail.

Megan carried Liam down the home stretch.

We drove back to the hotel and although our room is a short walk to the hotel restaurant, we parked at the restaurant because no one wanted to walk any more steps than we had to. After our lunch we split up and Liam, Megan and Robin went to the visitor center to do puzzles, while the rest of us went back to the rooms and took showers and chillaxed.

DAY 158

This was the first time where time zones were a bit of a problem. We had been planning to watch the Super Bowl and it said that it started at 7am local time. I never tried to match up the time zone dynamic but luckily Lily did. She realized that the Super Bowl would start at noon our time (and that the 7am we kept seeing was related to the pre-game show). The problem? That I had booked a tour of the glaciers at 1pm. Luckily, I was able to switch it to the 8am tour. It was insanely early (for us) to be somewhere at 7:30am for the meet up, but since we had thought we needed to get up before 7am to watch the Super Bowl, it wasn’t that bad.

We got there and we were 7 of the 11 people on the tour, with a couple from Michigan and a couple from London joining us. We walked a mile from the bus drop off to the boat. Then we took about a 90 minute boat ride around the lake.

The lake was created by a glacier that has been melting. The silt and rock that had been dug up as the glacier first grew and pushed the dirt forward, embedding the rock into the ice, and then came loose as the glacier melted, is what caused the lake to have the cloudy gray/blue tinge to it. It also is why the rivers that we saw on our walk had the same coloring.

No better way to explore a glacier than by boat.

We wet up to a number of icebergs floating in the lake - they were formed from shelving of the glacier, as giant pieces of ice separated from the glacier and fell into the pool. Every iceberg in the lake only showed about 10% of the ice in it.

The icebergs were neat, with icebergs in different phases, dirt, clear, white based on how long they had been exposed to sunlight. The bottom picture shows the dirt caught in the ice.

Some of the glacier was gray - apparently the ice had been twice as tall, but as it melted, the rocks trapped in the ice fell down and covered the top of the ice. Other ice was blue - this was because it was incredibly compact and hadn’t seen daylight for long. Other ice was white - recently uncovered, and probably exposed to the sun for about 24-48 hours, and started cracking, creating the white lines.

Despite the fact that it was early, it was a good time.

It was a pretty interesting tour and was probably worth getting up early for. Unfortunately, whenever you see a glacier, you get reminded about global warming. Apparently, 40 years ago, there was no lake, it was all glacier. And in 100 years there will be no more glacier.

The one problem with exploring a glacier by boat is that you can't get too close. The ice the falls into the water is just the top part, and there could be hundreds of meters of ice that goes out, just below the surface. Our guide said that the ice goes down about 200 meters under water.

We went back to the hotel and ate lunch. Liam and I hunted Pokemon until the game started. We watched the game and then “chillaxed” afterwards. We went to dinner then Liam and hunted Pokemon for 30 minutes and got back and the rest of them were watching “To all the Boys I Loved Before”.

Lily, Megan and I had planned to go to a stargazing event at 12:30am, because it was supposed to be one of the best places in the world to see stars. Unfortunately, they called us at 11pm and told us that the weather wasn’t cooperating and it was being cancelled. To make matters worse, it was the last night we there, so there was no rescheduling it. The upside was that we were leaving the next morning and I had to drive 4 hours, so at least I would get a little sleep.

DAY 159

We left our hotel at 10am and headed to Christchurch. On the way in we had passed Lake Pukaki, which had the water that looked like the Caribbean and we decided to to walk around the lake on our way out. The one problem was that the day was overcast and without the sun shining brightly, the water didn’t quite have the same beautiful blue tinge.

If you think that the view is good, you should come visit when the sun is out.

It was still a beautiful walk and at parts the sun would come out and we would get a glimpse of what we were looking for. But very quickly the path around the lake moved out towards the highway, so although we were going around the lake, it felt like we were doing a tour of the highway, ruining the aesthetic and we turned around. Meanwhile, I had realized that there was no way that we were going to be able to return the car by 4pm, so I was happy to cut the walk a little short. And you know that my kids were equally happy to cut any walk short.

Our last look at Mt Cook.

We stopped for lunch at a cute little cafe that had toys for kids and an outdoor play area for kids. And for the 1,000th time since we got to Australia and New Zealand Megan wondered why the US doesn’t have this.

We got to our hotel at 4pm, and I dropped them off and returned the car. Our building was very nice, but it was connected to a building that looked run down and abandoned, with a parking area next to it, so the whole area (except for our building itself) looked a bit sketchy. But then you turned around and across the street was a brand new construction: office/super market/shopping center. This was the one hostel we were staying at during our trip, and we wanted to show the kids that they didn’t have to pay a lot of money and stay at a fancy place to travel around. But my hope was that the place didn’t look sketchy on the inside.

Once again, given how long ago we made the reservations, it wasn’t quite clear how many rooms we had, in part because when we first looked at the rooms, we were tempted to book the room that had 8 bunk beds in it. Since I dropped everyone off to check in while I returned the car, they didn’t have the reservation details, so Megan called me while I was driving and I had to pull over to find the information (we had two rooms). I got back to the room a little after 5 and people seemed willing to stay in the hostel and eat pasta at the restaurant there (which was a legitimate restaurant, but felt like 80% of a real restaurant - since they didn’t have a set menu each night). I had seen an Italian restaurant that had good reviews so we decided to go there.

It was a 40 minute walk from the restaurant, so we decided to walk there and Uber home. The food at the restaurant was good, but not spectacular. Since it was Lily’s birthday (when isn't it?), they brought out some ice cream for her. The other kids were hungry, so I said we could get dessert if we walked home, but pretty much everything was closed at 8pm. Liam and Elenna demanded that I owed them Cookie Time (a cookie store) in the future for this let down.

The upshot of walking home was that we saw some electric scooters. Elenna had been asking to rent one for a while, but most of them didn’t come with helmets, so Megan said no. But these had helmets and Elenna rented one (anything to avoid exercise).

One of Elenna's goals was achieved on the "walk" home.

She had fun but wanted to go ahead of us, so Megan rented one two and the two of them set off. Liam didn’t like being left behind, so the two of us kept running to catch up to them, but eventually got left a few blocks behind due to the difficulties of catching every traffic light.

It might have been a goal for Megan too.

DAY 160

We didn’t have much planned for Christchurch (the big thing seemed to be that it was the ending point for a railway that went across the island that gives you great views of the mountains that were featured in Lord of the Rings. Megan and I had done that train 21 years earlier, and Liam isn't as into being on a train as one would think, making a 9 hour train ride unlikely to make anyone happy). However, our hostel offered a free walk around the city at 3pm, and Robin wanted to do that, so we decided to sleep in and go to lunch before the tour. I got up early and walked around the city looking for Valentine’s Day presents. Every year I do a big Valentine’s Day thing for my kids and wife, but New Zealand doesn’t appear to make a big deal about Valentine’s Day and it was difficult to get things even close to what I wanted. I ended up being relatively successful, and in my walks I found a dumpling place that had good reviews so we went there for lunch.

The walking tour around the city was only about 40 minutes long. One thing to know about Christchurch is that the city was destroyed in 2010 after a big earthquake hit and then another one hit in 2011. As a result, the city didn’t look at all familiar to me. One thing you should know about Lily is that she is afraid of earthquakes after experiencing one in Indonesia 6 years earlier, so needless to say, neither Megan nor I mentioned this to her, and despite the earthquake museum getting good reviews, we didn’t even consider it. So Megan and I shared a look when the guide asked if anyone had any questions about the city, and one of the people on the tour said that she would like to hear more about the earthquake and have the guide show what areas were destroyed.

I went up and hugged Lily when she said that, but Lily remained relatively composed during what Megan and I would later call “the earthquake tour” and it was an interesting 40 minutes - for a free tour. We passed a playground that I had already marked for us to visit, so after the tour, Liam, Megan, Robin and I went there while the rest went back to the room.

The playground was very cool with a large zipline and huge climbing structure. Liam made a few friends and played for almost 2 hours. We had arranged a painting class that night and Megan and the girls wanted to have ice cream for dinner, but Robin and I wanted a meal, so I ordered us pizza (and Liam some mozzarella sticks) and then we headed down to the painting class.

A big zip line is always fun, although often a little nerve wracking for the parents to watch.

Since we were staying at a hostel instead of a hotel, the place was filled with 20-somethings and there were a lot of cool places to hang out throughout the hostel. There was meeting space, a library, a theater (a large room with Netflix) and the first floor had a huge eating area and kitchen. And the ground floor had a bar/restaurant.

The backpacking culture was something that Megan and I had experienced 20 years earlier on our honeymoon, when we were on a 3 month trip, and most of the backpackers we met asked, “Why only 3 months?” People would travel around by themselves or maybe with one other person and then hope to meet up with someone to share part of their journey and then go their separate ways.

This painting class was really just a way for people who wanted to meet people to have an activity to do together, so when we registered for it, they didn’t particularly want kids there (it was a “Paint and sip” class, where they served wine while you painted). But we said that we would have the kids at one end of the table and it was fine. I didn’t sign up, figuring that I would be helping Liam paint, and that is how it worked out.

I'm a little bit better at drawing that I am at painting. All of these are pictures of Liam. Can you pick out which one is the real Liam?

We have been to painting classes where they show you how to paint things but since this was run by 20 something hostel workers, they just gave a theme and we could paint whatever we wanted to. Liam painted the background and then I asked what we should paint, and eventually he decided we should paint the Transformer Bumblebee. This meant that I had to paint a detailed, complex character and it came out about as good as I would have expected. But he seemed happy with it.

There are a number of ways to draw "space".

After that class, we walked over to the ice cream place "Rollickin'". They offered chocolate chip cookies and ice cream as a sundae and that is what most of us ordered. It was really good. I’m sure that the 10 minute walk there and then another 10 minutes back offset the calories.

They don't monkey around with their ice cream sundaes at Rollickin'.

Day 161

The only thing on the agenda was to go to the Antarctic center, but our typical noon wake up time, usually meant that you could really only do one thing in a day, so I had us go out to eat lunch at 11. On our walking tour we had heard about a restaurant that is located in an old post office, and they deliver the food to you in pneumatic tubes, so of course we had to try it out. It turned out that only some of the food is delivered that way (the nachos and pancakes apparently wouldn’t travel well), but among the 7 of us, 3 had our food delivered that way. I think that from now on, I would like all of my food delivered by pneumatic tubes.

When we get home, we are installing one of these in our house.

After that, we went to the Antarctica Centre (they spell things weirdly there), and on the way, Liam complained about how boring museums are. When we got there, we did a Hagglund ride. A Hagglund is an all-terrain vehicle that they use in Antarctica. They drove us around a 10 minute track, going up steel hills and across a gap that was a couple of feet wide. It was pretty fun. Liam loved it, and then Robin said to him, “Its a shame that museums are so boring!”

Every museum should have an all terrain vehicle ride.

Then we went inside and went through the exhibits. They had a room where they recreated some of the weather from the antarctic (this was the one exhibit that I remembered from when we were there on our honeymoon). It only went down to 17 degrees, but then they pumped up the wind and it went down to -17 degrees. Liam and some other little kids spent the storm in a little igloo (they were no dummies).

We got to see some snow on our trip, but about 15 minutes of cold was just the right amount.

We also saw a 4-D movie about antarctica - did you know that if all of the ice there melts, it will raise the sea level by 60 meters! Eesh. There were a number of other exhibits, including a place where you could put your hand in ice water and see how long you could hold it. Elenna and Keira did it for a minute, but Megan and Robin couldn’t get past 11 seconds. I was too smart to hold my hand in freezing water for more than just a brief dunk.

Then we did Elenna's favorite part which was meet some huskies. For some reason, they had huskies here even though they stopped using huskies in the Antarctic in 1996.

Elenna probably thinks that there should be husky petting at every museum.

After that we came back and then did a tram ride around the town. Liam (in theory) loves trains, so we paid the $75 for us to ride it around the city. It turns out that the tram ride didn’t really cover much more area than the little walking tour did. The driver of the tram gave commentary about what we passed, but it was hard to hear, in part because the sound system wasn't great, but in part because our kids weren’t paying attention and were talking to each other, or Liam was trying to talk to me about transformers. After that, Megan and Liam went to the playground again and the rest of us went back to the hotel. I did some laundry and wrote this blog.

We went out to eat at a South American restaurant because we heard that had good guacamole. Liam and I Pokemon hunted on the way back. When we met up with the girls at the hotel, they had started “When Harry Met Sally,” which was ambitious because it was after 9pm and we had to get up early the next day to fly to Wellington. But everyone stayed up (even Robin).

DAY 162

Valentine’s Day! I make a big deal about Valentine’s Day each year, getting Megan and my kids lots of presents and I decorate the house. I had thought about Amazon-ing some things to Robin and having her bring them, but I figured that I could get what I needed in New Zealand after a quick google about whether or not they celebrate Valentine’s Day in New Zealand (it said that they did).

Technically, this is true. On one of the Ubers that we were in, I heard a radio ad about Valentine’s Day, and a couple of the restaurants we went to mentioned Valentine’s dinners. But there were no decorations to be found - I walked around the city for about 2 hours and found a couple of things in a grocery store, and then a few more things in a random store that weren’t purpose built for Valentine’s Day, but in a pinch fit the bill. I also found a florist in Wellington and had them send flowers to our next stop for Megan.

So the night before I put up what decorations I had and I put out the candy and presents (a very soft Kiwi stuffed animal for Liam and soft scarves for everyone else). I had Elenna, Lily and Robin come over from their room a little early to open everything, and then we were off to the airport.

Apparently we had to celebrate Valentine's Day a little early for Liam.

We left our hotel about 10 minutes after we planned and there was more traffic than anticipated - it was supposed to take about 20 minutes, but it was closer to 40 minutes. We got our bags checked in and the person at the counter said that gate was down the hall, and there is a small airport lounge there, or we could go upstairs to the bigger lounge. I am the only one with status, so I figured that I could only take 1 person, and we decided to skip it.

We walked towards our gate and then realized - there is no security! Not even a metal detector or anything. Apparently if you fly very regional flights, it isn’t necessary. New Zealand is very safe! Or maybe not? We hadn’t really eaten breakfast, so I went into the small lounge to see if there were things I could take out with me, and I took a Coke Zero and some bananas, and as I was leaving, the woman at the check in said that I could take 1 adult and up to 3 kids to the other lounge. So Liam, Lily, Megan and I went upstairs in search of that lounge.

As we walked around, we realized that in order to get to that lounge, we would have to go through security - these flights were longer and most were international. So we went through security to get to the lounge, but not to our flight, which felt a bit strange. When we got to the lounge, the woman there said that I could only take one guest and kids under 2 (apparently if I was Gold with Air New Zealand I could have taken everyone, but being Star Alliance Gold was different and the first woman was confused). After a bit of discussion about how that’s not what the other woman said and how we walked up here and through security to get there, a woman who was in the lounge asked if she could use her pass to get us in. Apparently she couldn’t because we weren’t on the same flight, but it was a really nice offer. Eventually, the woman let us all in and we ate breakfast there.

The flight to Wellington was uneventful other than it was a propeller plane, which is always a bit unique. Then we had to take two Ubers to where we were staying - the home of the British High Commissioner to New Zealand. Megan had gone to school with her, and OJ had taught her and her brother. Robin and OJ have become good friends with her brother and her family, and we visited him when we were in England 7 years ago.

At the gates of the British Embassy.

The place was big and very old/fancy. They made us lasagne for dinner and we got to hear a lot about the job of an ambassador. Apparently, the High Commissioner in New Zealand is also the governor of the Pitcairn Islands, a small group of islands about 5,000 miles from New Zealand (but apparently closer to New Zealand than to any other British territory). She gets to make laws and set budgets for the island - with a population of 40 people. She had just gotten back from a visit there and said that she knew each and every one of the people that she governed.

A few more pictures of her house.

The house had multiple kitchens and fancy silverware. The back yard was quite large and had a tennis court and croquet field. It took us about 20 minutes to walk around it after dinner and explore it all.

A few pics of the outside

For dessert, there was cherry pie, and none of us could ever remember eating cherry pie before. And it was pretty good even though I don’t particularly like cherries.

DAY 163

Its Lily’s Birthday! This time for real! Liam had a plan where we would hide Lily’s presents in the kitchen and make her find them, so we did that, and he played hot and cold with her. Since Lily’s biggest objection to this trip has been not seeing her friends, we arranged it so we would fly back through Newark Airport and have a layover on our way from Munich to Lima, and some of her friends would come over for a sleepover. Megan had also asked some of her friends if they wanted to write a card to Lily to wish her a happy birthday, and Iona (her excellency, the High Commissioner) collected them all and we gave them to her.

Lily was overjoyed by her letters and getting to see her friends, and didn't want any pictures posted of her full face.

After opening presents, we went down to the harbor and ate brunch, and Liam ordered nutella pancakes. We have spent enough time with Liam eating nutella that we have a plan.

Liam was in full Nutella eating gear.

Then we walked around a bit. The area on the water was nice, with restaurants, some beaches and a number of playgrounds. There also happened to be some crew races going on while we were there (I called it crew, but it was really a very long canoe, with maybe 20 paddlers in each boat, and a coxswain in the front beating a drum to keep the beat). The only bad thing was that it was a functioning port, so the far side of the harbor was filled with shipping containers, which ruined the view a bit.

Everyone enjoying a crew race.

Liam had a great time on the playground.

It was a nice downtown area, with a cute family at a park..

Eventually, we went to the Zealandia animal sanctuary, which was a place to see birds and wildlife. I had pictured a zoo, but it was more of a wooded area where you could walk along paths and hopefully see wildlife. So in a way it was better than a zoo, as far as walking around - it was like walking around in a foresty/jungle. However, in another, more accurate way it worse because you weren’t really guaranteed to see an animal. But the walk was nice and the forests were amazing. It looked like you were walking through a jungle, but given that New Zealand doesn’t have snakes or panthers or anything that can really kill you, its much more enjoyable.

Wasn't much of a zoo, but a nice place to go for a walk.

the coolest part of the place was that they had a giant "Guess Who" board, but for birds.

The fun is trying to guess, when you play Guess Who?

After that we went back to the residence and relaxed for a little before going out to eat dinner. We found a nice restaurant to celebrate Lily’s birthday (for real this time) and treated our hosts to thank them for their hospitality.

We got dressed up celebrate.

Happy Birthday Lily!

This time for real!

DAY 164

We set off from the embassy at 10am. I am generally of the view that in a strange place you want to get to the airport 2 hours before the flight which would have meant leaving at 9:30, but our hosts said, 10/10:15 should be fine, so we decided to call an Uber at 10. The problem was that the Uber didn’t come for 15 minutes and there was a half marathon on our route to get there. So Robin, Elenna, Keira and I got in the first Uber and got to the airport 1 hour and 10 minutes before it took off, and we started to check in.

We printed our own baggage tags and then made the mistake of going to the normal line to put the bags on the conveyor belt (vs the priority line), because there was a stickler there who didn’t like how big our carry ons were (to be fair, they are quite big). So she said we could take 2 bags (a carry on and a personal item) and I had an extra beach bag in my bag and we rearranged everything from Elenna and Keira’s bags into that to get their carryons down to the appropriate weight. I moved a couple of things, but was still a little over 8kg (vs the 7kg limit) and I decided that was good enough.

Megan, Liam and Lily still hadn’t arrived, so I sent the other three ahead (Robin had to catch this flight because of her connecting flight home). I wasn't feeling too nervous about the rest of the family, since they were scheduled to get to the airport about 15 minutes before the baggage drop closed, but I had already printed their tags, so we just had to load the bags and go. I warned them to leave their carryons far away and only have one person bring the suitcases to the desk. I went to the premier check in, figuring that they were less likely to give us a hard time and checked in the bags, while I sent those 3 ahead. I caught up to them in security and both Megan and I had something in our bags flagged in the metal detector, so I was the last one to the gate, but we still had about 10 minutes before we took off. Overall, it was a very stressful time, but I was talking to someone at work a few years ago who flies as much as I do, and he said that if you have never missed a flight, then you spend entirely too much of your life in an airport. So at least no one can accuse us of that.

We landed in Auckland and got our bags and bid Robin a fond farewell. Not only did she bring some things to us to help us restock, but she also brought some things home for us to lighten our bags (mostly books we read, as well as some stuffed animals and a couple random pieces of clothes). Then we got our rental car and drove 2 hours north to Waipu.

The countryside was pretty - valleys, mountains, farms - a lot of green. But the farther away we got from Auckland, the less “civilization” there was. Lily wanted to see the new Captain America movie (so did Keira, Elenna and I) and made it one of her birthday priorities that we subsequently had to delay because we didn’t want to watch a movie while Robin was there and we were being hosted by Megan’s friends. As we drove farther and farther north, I started to worry that we would have to drive back to Auckland to find a movie theater.

When we got to the VRBO, we unpacked and then Megan and I went grocery shopping. We spent about $200 getting a week’s worth of food (we subsequently spent another $100 at various stops to buy random things over the next week). Lily wanted to bake her own birthday cake - our daughters all love baking, so Lily was going through withdrawal, so we bought ingredients for baking.

It was the best birthday cake that Lily has ever baked in New Zealand.

We got home and made dinner and I got us tickets to see Captain America at a theater that was 40 minutes away - but seemed to be in a reasonably sized town, so we made a plan to buy a bunch of things that weren’t available at the grocery store 15 minutes from our house.

DAY 166

Our place had a beautiful view and its an easy walk down to the beach (but not quite so easy back up to the house). The one problem was that there was no air conditioning and the large windows would act a little bit like a magnifying glass making the house a lot hotter (especially if we were also trying to cook or run the dryer).

There was a beautiful view from the house.

Megan and I went to the grocery store on the first day, but there were a number of things that we didn’t get, so when Keira, Lily, Elenna and I went out to see the new Captain America movie, we stopped at KMart to get some long sleeve rash guards for the Maldives, sea sickness pills, and various food items. We thought that the movie was solid, but not in the top half of Marvel movies.

Megan had been struggling with how hot the room has been (a number of the places we stayed in New Zealand didn’t have air conditioning). I had to get up “early” the next morning to talk to my boss about the plan for returning back to work, so I snuck out of the house quietly and then went to the store to get some more things that we were missing. While I was out, I got her a large fan for the room.

Later that day, Keira, Megan, Liam and I went down to the beach and spent a few hours there.

Liam and I had fun in the water.

Liam and I did wave tag for a while.

Wave tag is a classic.

Then Liam, Megan and I went on a Pokemon hunt, but Liam was limping, so we cut it short. Then we had Elenna come down and join us for a walk before going back to the house to eat dinner. Keira and Megan were hooked on an Australian “reality” show where people got married on sight and then had to live together, so we had to make sure that we ate in time, because the day before, we ate late and it was on while we were eating dinner and it was “intimacy week” - which made Elenna embarrassed and want to leave the room, but Liam not, so we had Elenna take Liam out of the room.

DAY 170

One of the reasons that we chose to stay at Waipu was that, besides being on the beach, it also had glow worm caves. The reviews all said that the glow worm caves in Waitomo were better (which is why we also went there), but that we should also check these out if we were in the area. The twist to visiting this cave was that it was something that you did on your own.

So one of the things about going into a cave on your own is that you have to bring some light. Some reviews said that phone flashlights worked, but some said that you needed something stronger, so when we found out that the flashlights in our VRBO weren’t working, we decided to buy some flashlights on the way there. Megan went into a "dairy" (what they called a bodega in New Zealand) and asked for flashlights and after a period of confusion, they said that they were out. The people who worked there didn’t speak English well, but we also thought that maybe we should have asked for “torches” instead of “flashlights”.

We stopped at a hardware store next. I knew where this was because Megan was struggling to fall asleep given the lack of air conditioning and I bought her a giant fan there. This caused an uproar from our kids (particularly Keira) who were also “feeling the heat”. We were more successful here, including buying some head lamps (actual headlamps that you strap around your head, not what they call headlights in New Zealand) .

We drove over to the caves and as we got closer, the roads got worse. They were windy, and granted, almost every road in New Zealand is windy, but it became a rockier road - unpaved, but lightly covered with rocks. It also got narrower. So the combination of poor road, narrow and winding around curves, usually with one side sloping off into a big drop meant that Megan was getting increasingly worried about the drive (maybe I should add the fact that I was driving to the list of things that made Megan increasingly worried).

It all came to a head as I came around a turn just as another car did. I was about to put our car into reverse to try and find a spot in the road where two cars could pass and Megan told me to wait and then the other car started to back up. They were on the side of the mountain, and although there was a ditch between the road and the mountain to help move away the water when it rained, it was nothing like the drop that would have happened if I went too far on my side of the road.

The other driver took a few minutes and a number of turns (just picture someone trying to parallel park, and not getting it right, and instead of getting out and trying again from scratch, just going back and forth). But I didn’t mind since it was better that they try than I try. Megan had gotten out of the car to look at the situation better, and the woman got out too. At this point, Keira said, its so classic that the two women get out while the men drive, but then I pointed out that the driver is on the right side of the car, so actually she was the driver. Eventually they got the car to the side and we were able to get by and I could tell that Megan was already worried about the drive back out.

We got to the parking lot and there were a bunch of cars. We were happy to see that because although the idea of going into a cave by yourself to explore the glow worms is cool, the reality of going into a cave you don’t know is a bit daunting and we were happy that there would be other people around in case something went wrong.

We entered the cave and I was proud of my kids since Lily and Elenna had passed on going into the cave in Thailand (the big difference being that there are no snakes in New Zealand and no one said anything about bats in this cave). We were able to walk on some rocky/muddy ground but there was water running through the cave and some parts got to be such that we just had to walk in the water for a minute to cross to the next dry area.

Going into a cave by yourself SOUNDS fun, but also is a little scary.

After about 20 meters in we started to hear music. It sounded like rhythmic chanting, as if we were walking in on some Maori ritual in the back of the cave. It was very disquieting, but we saw another group walking around so we figured it was ok.

This music didn't make it any less scary.

Megan talked to someone who said that the music was piped in, so there wasn’t anything to worry about. Over time, the music changed, but always into music that I would call “eerie cave music”.

After about 50 meters in I saw my first glowworm, but another couple was coming around the bend and they said that if we went another 25 meters in they would be everywhere.

So we kept walking and it was amazing.

The picture without the flash makes it look like the night sky.

Megan, Lily and I had laid outside the night before for about 30-40 minutes looking up at the night sky, since we weren’t able to do the stargazing at Mt Cook. It was clear and you could see the Milky Way at points. This view within the cave was very similar and I can see how the flies would get confused and think that they were outside and fly up. At one point I joked that I could see the big dipper after a series of worms looked quite similar to the constellation.

I think that I see the same number of constellations in each of these pictures, even though the one on the right is the only night sky.

After 10 or 15 minutes of looking at the worms we turned around and exited the cave.

The cave was beautiful and worth the perilous drive in.

The way out of the park was a bit easier than coming in as we were now on the mountain side of the windy roads and didn’t run into any cars coming in. We drove back to the house, quickly changed and then walked down the hill to a restaurant at the bottom of the hill for dinner.

DAY 173

Most of the days in Waipu looked like this - we would get up around 10am and I would feed Liam and eat some breakfast. Then we would get the girls up around noon and have Keira join us at the beach. Liam and I would Pokemon hunt for a while (there was actually some really good hunting there) and we would periodically get Elenna and Keira to go on walks with us.

Me and Liam on one of our many Pokemon hunts. Every once in a while, you had to stop if you saw a tire swing or something.

Some days the weather wouldn’t be good and we would go to the movies (Captain America and Paddington 3) or we would stay in and Megan and Keira would do a Grey’s Anatomy marathon day, while Liam and I would Pokemon hunt.

But some days it would just be Megan, Liam and Me walking around at the beach and for the 1,000th time we wondered how we raised kids that wouldn’t want to swim in the ocean (an ocean that they have never been to about as far away from home as possible).

Liam giving me a back massage, which I needed after all of that walking.

On the last day in Waipu, we went on a walk that Megan had read about along the shore. A little about the topography of Waipu. It is on the beach, but on the other side of the road was all farm land. Meanwhile, on the beach part, there was a patches of sand and dunes before the water, in other parts there were rocky outcroppings going right into the water. In some of those places, there were trees seeming to magically grow out of the rocks and over the water.

You had your choice of sand dunes or rock walls along the beach.

So this path went along the water giving these amazing views of the ocean splashing against the rocks with huge trees jutting over the water. But when you looked in the other direction, it was like you were walking down a country path in rural England or something, with tall grass and houses or farmland.

We walked along a path on the rural English countryside, er, I mean along the New Zealand coast.

We got everyone but Lily to go on this walk, and although Keira will generally do anything without complaining, she and Elenna clearly wanted this walk over as quickly as possible. But Liam was looking forward to having a picnic on the beach and then walking and exploring some other beaches to potentially swim. So we stopped at a spot we saw in a bried walk along this path the night before with just Liam, to have our picnic.

We had a nice picnic to start off our walk.

But after another 10 minutes of walking, when Liam wanted to explore the next beach, they complained, but we stopped because walks in the wilderness are not about completing them, but seeing what there is to see.

It was a good idea to stop and explore the area. Liam lived his best life.

The walk itself was a little strenuous, going up and down and in some places you had to climb over or duck under some things to keep going. So after an hour when we had officially completed the walk, but could walk another 45 minutes to a beach, we all decided that it was better to walk back (since it was an hour back home up and down the same hills). Plus, the girls had set up calls with their friends for later in the day.

A couple of my favorite trees on our walk.

That night was the last night in the apartment, so dinner was eating all of the left over food in the house. Then we packed up for our long trip the next day.