The Celebration Starts in New Zealand

New Zealand is one of the first countries to welcome

each new day and each new year. Izzy celebrates Maori style (or is he having gas?)

Jo swings into the new year at a beach near Thames.

Cheers! A toast to the New Year from Wellington.
Even though we don't know where we will be celebrating next New Year's , we're sure we will enjoy all the adventures 2008 holds in store for us.

In the third week of December we travelled to Coromandel and New Plymouth. Of course, we visited wineries. This one overlooks the Tasman Sea - due West is Australia.

There are thousands of waterfalls in New Zealand. This one is in the shadows of Mt. Taranaki. We can't figure out why Izzy looks so much smaller than Jo - he thinks he looks like a ventriloquist's dummy.

You may not recognize this, but it is a restroom. When you close the door, music starts playing and when the automated voice says, "door now locking" all you can do is wonder will it unlock when I'm ready to leave.

Mt. Taranaki from our hotel window. The day we visited the mountain, it was surrounded by clouds. It is an impressive mountain that dominates the landscape from miles around.

New Zealand had several major gold rushes around the same time that gold was discovered in California.

This is the only open pit gold mine still operating.

One of the many beautiful beaches of the Coromandel.

Cathedral Cove - one of the most photographed areas in New Zealand.

It was a beautiful two hour hike to the Sea Cave at Cathedral Cove.

The hikes through the mountains are amazing and

the trails are well-maintained.

They have these signs everywhere, but really you never see the Kiwis in the wild. Kiwis are nocturnal and unfortunately very rare since man introduced many predators into NZ.

Izzy strolling one of the most famous beaches in New Zealand, Piha. The most popular show on TV is Piha Rescue so when we had to stop and see the beach when we were on our way to Coromandel.

Sunset in Coromandel.

We hope all of you will enjoy many beautiful sunsets in 2008.

Reception at American Ambassador's Home

We were invited to a Christmas reception at the home of the US Ambassador. The home, which was built in 1920, houses a collection of native American art contrasted with Maori art. From the outside the house in shielded by a giant hedge. You would never know the home exists. There is a guard house in front and two additional houses in the compound where embassy officials live. It was great to attend an event where most every one spoke English with the same accent that we do. The assistant ambassador gave us a pin with the American and NZ Flags. Izzy loves the pin and has worn it every day since the event. I gave my pin to an American doctor who admired Izzy's pin. I was so worried about what to wear to the event, since I didn't bring any dress clothes, but I couldn't see buying something to wear only one time. I settled with basic black and a Chico's jacket. My best friend from high school suggested I might consider wearing this clinging red dress she wore to our high school reunion - I laughed at the idea, but I think the ambassador would have loved it.

The ambassador is Bill McCormick. He owned a restaurant chain called McCormick & Schmick. We have eaten at his restaurants in San Diego and in Vancouver. Obviously, he was a big Bush contributor. He told me he bought a bach (holiday home) in NZ to live in just in case the Republicans are voted out in November.

Travels with My Sisters

Travels in the South Island with

Tippy and Alan

Tippy and Alan were lucky enough to arrive in time to attend the Toast Martinborough wine festival. We took the party train from Wellington to join10,000 winos visiting 20 wineries. The girls' shirts say Wild Women on Wine and the men's say We Love Wild Women on Wine. The wine was matched with great food, including paua (abalone) and each winery had music provided by local bands. The predominate wines in New Zealand are pinot noir and sauvignon blanc - there are some great wines, but no competition for California wines - I miss my zinfandel. Tippy and Alan brought us three bottles of our favorite California Zinfandel.

Yes, something is wrong with Izzy - read on!

The day after the wine festival we took the early ferry to the South Island and after touring the wineries in Marlborough, we did a four day tramp (hike) on the Queen Charlotte Sound. We treated ourselves to a luxurious hiking style. Each night was spent in a resort complete with gourmet meals and more wine from New Zealand. Our bags were carried from resort to resort by the water taxis. Our guide was Greg with Natural Encounters. If you want to read more about the hike see www.natural-encounters.com The daily hikes were between 5 and 8 hours long and the trails were easy to difficult. We had the best weather. Every day was a blue sky day. Now for Izzy - on first day of the hike he heard someone say, only 10 minutes to a cold beer, so he stepped up the pace and, believe it or not, a tree root reached out and grabbed his ankle. He fell in the most contorted position you can imagine and was lucky to have only sprained his ankle. For the next three days, Izzy traveled with our luggage on the water taxi and greeted us each afternoon with a cold beer. (I somehow wonder if he and the tree root faked the accident).

We developed our own toast to use in NZ - Bar, Bar, Bahhh, Bahhh - to celebrate the wines and sheep of New Zealand. There are 4 million people in NZ (the population of Los Angeles) and 20 million sheep

Typical view from the Queen Charlotte Track - the water really is that blue.

Another view of Queen Charlotte Sound.

After the hike, we drove South to Kaikoura to swim with the dolphins. It was a beautiful day and we ran into several dolphin pods with hundreds of dusky dolphins. These are the ones you see flipping out of the water. It was amazing to see all the dolphins swimming under the water - we really enjoyed the babies swimming closely to their mums. This was an adventure of a lifetime.

Our journey then continued by visiting more wineries in the South Island and Christchurch, the second largest city in NZ and the most English of any city in NZ. On our way out of Christchurch, we stopped in Hinds. As many of you know, Hinds is Jo's maiden name. We had planned on toasting John, who died 2 years ago, but the tavern wasn't opened - we toasted him in our hearts. Dad had visited Hinds in 1979 when he took a trip on his own around the world.

Our next stop was Mount Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand (see the highest peak in this photo). Yes, the color of the lake in natural, the unique color comes from silt deposited by glaciers.

We took a helicopter tour to Mount Cook and landed high on the snow. The nose touching is a traditional Maori greeting.

Another view of Mount Cook.

From Mount Cook we headed south to Te Anau to start our adventures in Fiordland. This in Lake Te Anau, the second largest lake in NZ. We hiked for one day (of a four day track) on the Milford Track, one of the most famous hikes in NZ.

Lake view from our motel in Te Anau.

I love the cloud, it looks like a spaceship.

The next day we did a cruise in Doubtful Sound, perhaps the most amazing and beautiful part of New Zealand. The scenery is spectacular. We saw more waterfalls on this cruise than we have ever seen before. These are the very rare yellow-eyed penguins. The photo isn't very good because of the mist and the distance from the boat, but I know they wanted to be included on our blog.

One of the thousand of waterfalls in Doubtful Sound. There was rain and mist in the air - not so good for pictures, but great for creating the mood of the sound.

Our last stop was Queenstown, adventure capital of the world - home of bungee jumping. Here we are in a bar called 5 Degrees below. They only allow you to stay 30 minutes because it truly is 5 degrees below.

This is as close as we got to bungee jumping!!

Travels in the North Island

with Jo Ceal and David

We headed north from Wellington to National Park - home to three famous volcanoes and the Chateau Hotel. A famous Maori chief gave the land for the first national park to the people of New Zealand because of its unparalled beauty. Unfortunately, the god of rain and mist was angry the day we visited and we couldn't even see the volcanoes that surrounded the Chateau. We did enjoy our stay at the beautiful Chateau and the food in the dining room was marvelous. Jo Ceal had to buy a postcard to see what the volcanoes look like. There had been an eruption just before she arrived in NZ and she was really hoping to see a little "puff" - but no luck.

Our next stop was Rotorua. The geothermal areas are similar to Yellowstone - complete with odor.

We attended a hangi, a traditional Maori dinner and show, similar to a luau. They asked for a volunteer to the Chief of Many Nations (in other words the foreign visitors). Izzy volunteered so we could get the best seats for the show. Here is Izzy greeting the Maori chief. The funny thing is that the next day someone yelled out Hi Chief to Izzy. Just a side note on Izzy's three new nicknames. Obviously, the first one is Chief. The next one is Andrew. The Andrew name arose when Izzy was making reservations for dinner with Tippy and Alan at our favorite Italian restaurant, Maria Pia's. Maria herself answered the phone and her English isn't very good. After 5 minutes of trying to get her to write down Unger, Izzy settled for Andrew and sure enough when we got to the restaurant there was a reservation for Andrew. The third name is Izzard - this arose from a misunderstanding at a hotel in Picton. So, when we talk of Chief Andrew Izzard, you will know of whom we speak.

Izzy and David trying to imitate the Maoris. Rotorua is a center for Maori art and culture.

Jo Ceal and David.

Sisters.

We then visited The Bay of Plenty and swam with the dolphins. We saw a pod with over 500 common dolphins - the dolphins were feeding and the sea birds were diving all around them - it was an amazing site. The swimming experience was more like an E ticket ride at Disneyland than a nice calm swim. The captain of the ship developed a swim bar. The idea was that you would lower yourself into the water and hold onto the bar and with your mask on you would look down and see all the dolphins swimming along with the boat while the captain moved the boat over the43 dolphins. The main problems were: 1 - the water was freezing and the wet suits were old and did not include a hood to keep your head warm and 2 - the dolphins were moving so fast the boat couldn't keep up. We affectionately call this the Dolphin Drag. We were very lucky to spend two nights at Bambi's Beach Bach. Bambi is the sister of a good friend in San Diego. The bach is close to Mount Manganui, a beautiful resort area near Tauranga. We also had dinner with Julie's parents, Gwen and George who live nearby. George had the most beautiful flower and vegetable garden you can imagine.

Jo Ceal and David celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary while in Napier. Dinner was at Mission Winery.

Sunrise from our hotel in Hawkes Bay.

One of the most amazing things we have ever seen is the Gannet Colony at Cape Kidnappers. There were thousands of nesting gannets who weren't afraid of us humans hovering around them with our cameras. Note the egg under one of the birds. The birds exhibit lots of signs of affection. We stayed for almost an hour, but we could have stayed longer because we were so fascinated. I have lots of pictures, if anyone wants to see more.

Remember the 4 million people and 20 million sheep - well there are 70 million possums (don't ask how they did the census)! The New Zealanders blend merino wool with possum wool to create some lovely products.

Jo Ceal was freaked out by the whole possum trade, but she did buy a friend (?) a pair of possum gloves.

Jo Ceal and David at a beach winery at Cape Kidnappers.