Well these picture are in reverse chronological order and the two posts of south pacific are in revserse order as well so you might want to scroll to the bottom of the pictures and look at them from bottom to top -- click on any of the pictures to enlarge



here are pictures of me and simon at the beach

a closer shot of Lion rock with me and Simon


The waves made interesting patterns in the sand -- different everytime.


Simon got worried when I went out this far -- I didn't read the signs Hannah took a picture of. simon said the surf was capable of sweeping me out to sea and a ripcurrent could take me even farther if one was present (which they often are he said). The water wasn't too cold -- it was cool but it wasn't uncomfortable.


The waves were huge and it made for excellent surfing I hear.


This is Piha beach and a shot of Lion Rock at Piha. It's a surfing beach on the Tasman Sea on the West side of NZ.


Hannah took this. It's a picture of the warnings before you go on the beach -- I didn't read them.


I loved the view of the reservior and the harbor.


I zoomed in on approximately the center of the picture below.


This is a reservior near Auckland that lets out into the harbour. It was cool because there were so many types of foliage -- though I'm not sure how dicernable they are in the picture. the Waitakere maontian range



Two Maoris showing a traditional sign of defiance called the (don't know the spelling exactly) pookana put extra emphasis on the POO and that's how they say it :)


boiling mud at the reserve


riverside runoff






then they went off on us


This is a cool shot because it has a really blue pool right next to the gysers that fills every time they go off -- the river on the other side also gets some runoff from the gysers


Here's a closer shot.


The next day we went to a reserve called Te Puia (formerly wakkarewarewa) Which is half Maori history center half natural reserve. All the Kiwis pronounces Maori as Mowry -- as in Dowry. This is a far off picture of twin gysers that we watched.


We went to a traditional Maori Dinner.


The crater lake, it was beautiful.


Here's a shopping center -- there were countless souvenier shops.


Places all over had cool corragated metal workings.



need an explanation?


Hannah, Elisa, Eston, and I went on a tramp of Downtown Rotorua -- the most touristy part of the town I guess -- there were souvenier shops everywhere.


This water was boilling, but unlike all of the other areas it was quite cold. Interesting...


The sulphfur made for very insterestingly coloured (spelled that way purposefully) algae. I saw all this on the trail next to the hotel.


Now back to the lake, this is a picture of the steaming vents at the lake shore-- it was a sizeable lake.


Again in less-than-p[erfect order, this was my first lunch in NZ. It was Curried lamb and it was very very good -- we went to a Thai restaurant in Rotorua.


I liked this sign, it was at the head of a trail near the Lake Plaza Hotel in Rotorua NZ the first place we stayed after leaving the Auckland airport. It is referring to Sulphur springs that were near the hotel and in the crater lake next to the hotel. It really stank.


My trombone


This is a picture of the Waikato river in NZ right after coming out of a hydroelectric dam that we stopped to observe. It was very scenic.


I'm now realizing that these pictures are not in exact order. Here we have Glenn and Vanessa at the KCI Airport before we left. A couple of pictures up is my Trombone case wrapped in a protective cover Hannah made also at KCI.


Of course this is when we arrived in Auckland -- much of our travel took place at night.


we start with the "lego" trees, a name Hannah coined on her first trip to NZ. Simon, the husband in our host family, said they are norfolk pines. It's interesting to see pines and tropical plants in the same forests.

Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.