For as little as I wanted to go to the stinky spa yesterday, Jane wanted to go to Hobbiton today even less. She's not a big Lord of the Rings Fan. But our guide told us that nearly 30% of the people who visit Hobbiton have never seen even one …

I woke up several times during the night, and each time I did I could hear the rain battering the metal roof of our condo. Around 5:30 Jane woke up enough to say, "I don't want to go mountain biking on muddy trails." Then she rolled over and went …

The goal for today had been to bike the Timber Trail. But since the forecast was for lots of rain we arranged to postpone that until Friday. My next hope was that we would be able to see Mount Doom . But we didn't get to see that version (thankfully!), I'll …

When Jane told me that if the weather was right we might be able to sail our kayaks I was perplexed. "How do you add a mast to a Kayak?" I thought to myself. So I had mostly put it out of my mind as an option until we were …

Estuary: the tidal mouth of a river where the river meets the tide.

The final leg of our hike today ended with an estuary crossing. We arrived about an hour before low tide so our guide, Jack, suggested that we just chill a bit and wait for the tide to …

After two weeks of organized tours and bus rides we struck out on our own today in a rental car. New Zealand drives on the left and there are many helpful arrows painted on the road to remind the foreign drivers of that fact. As always, Jane took the drivers …

As we walked back from Ultimate Hikes to the Lovely St. Moritz hotel we stopped at the Real Journeys office to check on our reservation for Milford Sound. We had sort of concluded that if the helicopter return was not going to go, and we could back out at this …

Day Zero

We arrived in Queenstown just in time to appreciate the change in temperature. We left the 90 degree weather in Melbourne and arrived to 70 degree weather in Queenstown. It was a very welcome change in both temperature and scenery. It takes about 30 seconds to realize why …

Arrival and Trolly Tour

We arrived in Melbourne and took a little dinner tour of the city on a dinner trolly. We thought it would be mediocre food, but a good way to see the city. It turned out that the food was better than expected, and in the end …

WOW! we haveve just finished a day on a live aboard dive boat where we did 4 dives and 2 snorkels on the great barrier reef. I saw Nemo, Dory and all the rest, except for Crush! Plus we saw sea slugs, octopus, sharks (not Bruce!!) lobster, and many many …