Todd and Lisa's RTW trip

So far we love this country!!! We don’t want to curse it but we have had nothing but great luck.  First we booked a room in a hostel, but when we arrived it was full.  The owner convienently also had a B&B that she put us in for the same price.  Then our plain silver ford station wagon had some issues, so we took it back and got a PURPLE one with tinted windows.  Then, we made tentative plans to head further north to try and do some diving, but an awful storm rolled through and we had to change plans to head east instead.  We spent one extra day in Auckland and got in touch with a friend of Ivan and Floria’s, Clovis.  We couldn’t even believe it when we told him we wanted to head to a place called Hot Water Beach and he told us he had a camper (they call it a caravan) there that we could use.  We spent the afternoon with him, wife and baby and got all the advise we needed.

We drove to HWB and got to his camper.  It was awesome.  The camper is right out of 1970, complete with orange formica and all.  What was really spectacular was the location.  It was up on a hill overlooking the ocean… AWESOME.  We couldn’t stop cracking “white trash, red neck” jokes.  “Woman get in the kitchen and make me a drink” kinda stuff.  It was a hoot.

The thing that was so cool about HWB was that if you go down at low tide, you can did a hole in the sand and HOT water comes up.  You can sit in your hot water pool, while the cold ocean waves splash up on you.  Really fun.  We left today and headed through a town Te Aroha.  We stopped and had a spa bath at the world’s only hot soda water springs.  Too much excitement for one day… here are some pic’s.

Ok so pretty much we think this will be a boring blog entry, because we understand that reading about our family vacation is not as interesting as 3rd world countries.  We completely understand if you skip all the words and go directly to the really cute pictures of baby ben!! 

Lets start where we left off… before the family arrived, we headed up to Cairns for our 3 day live aboard dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef.  We had crappy weather the whole time, but the diving was still good.  We were not at all impressed with the reef itself ( We know, we are such snobs), but the marine life was AWESOME.  We saw HUGE sharks, turtles, rays, ginormous schools of fish, etc.  We also did a night dive alone.  We ain’t goona lie… it was freaky!! Lucky for us, we were up there the week before the cyclone. Thanks for those who were worried about us…

When we got back down to sydney the family crew arrived and we spent a few days hanging around Coogee (where Ivan and Floria’s house is).  We got a real dose of birth control, as baby ben had explosive diarrhea and vomiting for two days ( or as Ivan called it–Pinwheeling).  After Ben (and Mary) recovered from the trauma of a 20 hr flight, we rented a van to head up north to the beach.  We didn’t rent just any van though, we rented the MEGA- van.  It was huge, held up to 12 people.  We could stand up in it.  Everyone had their own row of seats.  The trip up to Byron Bay took two days.  It felt like forever.  No offense to the family, but i am pretty sure everyone felt the same way.  After not seeing each other for a while then getting into a car together can be a little difficult.  Fortunately, this did not set the tone for the rest of our week. 

We rented a spectacular house on the beach.  The beach was amazing.  It was huge and empty, and always had fun waves rolling in.  We rented a couple of surfborads and “ripped it up”. Ok, the truth is that Todd and Mary ripped it up, Lisa and Ivan kinda just drank Ocean!! Even Mama J hopped on the bogey board and showed us how to do it grandma style!!  We don’t want to bore you with all the fun details, overall it was a wonderful week with beautiful weather, great food and a really cute baby!!

We made the return trip in one day!!  Spent a few days being tourists in Sydney, the harbour bridge, shopping (for opals) and the zoo.  The highlight was going to the opera with 2nd row seats. Thanks Ive and Floz!!!

Australia was great.  It was SO nice to be with family after being alone for so long.  It’s definitely a place we could see ourselves living. Hmmmmmm….

Yesterday we sadly left, but happily arrived in Aukland NZ.  It was so strange when we got here.  We felt like we were in Hawaii.  This place is loaded with the same pacific islanders (tonga, samoa, cook etc) as Hawaii.  Maybe some of you know this, but we had no idea.  If you look at a map, we guess it makes sense. We rented a station wagon for 38 days, and plan on cruising around both islands… we’ll keep you posted!

(again… click to enlarge) 

Heres the MEGA VAN

 

So cute huh??

Like father, like son..

Here we all are at Ivan and Floria’s house.

This is the Sydney Opera house.

So we have been in Australia for about a week now and it has been FABULOUS. We were greeted at the airport by Ivan and Floria (Lisa's Cousins), taken to their comfortable house and fed steak... it is what we ... [Continue reading this entry]