Wellington, Urenui River, Waingaro Hot Springs, Auckland, and Home.
08:59am NZTime

Many days later....

Wellington:
After the stay at the industrial park, we went into the city and due to my having an interview in Wellington that day, we decided to stay at a "motor hotel" in the city for our last night there. We checked in, I walked Deb and the kids down to the Te Papa museum and then walked into the heart of town. Wellington is like a little San Francisco. Lots of old victorians and very steep hills. Much more cosmopolitan than the rest of NZ, it really is a beautiful city. I cruised up to Sidhe Interactive (the game company I was coming down here to see) and had a great talk with Mario Wynands about development, New Zealand, and America. If I was planning to move to NZ and stay in my current field, I would most certainly come to Wellington. Great place.

Done with my meeting with Sidhe, I walked back down to the Te Papa museum and met up with Deb and the critters. That is one cool museum man,.. beautifully designed and chock full of great exhibits on New Zealand. Got some cool shots of a Bone Gallery for my buddy Michael.

We walked back towards the hotel from there and stopped in for some tasty sushi at a local sushi bar. Just about the same price as it is in the states, but still super yummy.

The night was pretty horrendous. Rats humping loudly outside the window,.. clicking noises in the walls... too hot to sleep, I got about three hours and got up and took a shower, drove Spuckler down to the 24 hour shop and drank a bunch of coffee. The morning was beautiful and I took a few pics, woke the kids and Deb up and headed North on the coast road (Hwy 1!) towards Auckland.

Urenui River:
Drove around the base of Mount Taranaki (The Last Samurai was filmed here because of the mountains same cinder-cone features as Mt. Fuji in Japan) and wound up in this dinky little holiday park on the Urenui River. The water was so warm and the people so friendly that we decided to stay for a few days and relax on the beach, play in the water, have mud-fights.... it was really one of the best camp-spots we found on this trip. The first night we met up with a couple in their 80's who were absolutely wonderful. John and Mary Anne Hancock (Yes, his name was John Hancock) were ex-pats from England who turned Kiwi about fifty years ago. John, an engineer, had build this amazing house on top of 1950's (?) truck transport. Pneumatic rams to lift the deck and porch roof into place, solar cells on the roof. Really amazing. We had a long discussion over wine and walks about the approaching end of fossil fuels and the potential aftermaths. Very enlightened and educated people and really wonderful conversationalists, both.

The last day at Urenui, Kaya was sliding on a mud flat and got sliced up really good by the mussels that were embedded first, in the mud and then, in her toes. She was a brave little critter while we used a toothbrush to clean the fine, black sand and bits of shells from her toe slices. Kenna built a fie lean-to and decorated it and I threw my back out swimming in the surf with the kids and Deb. Possibly time to get back home now...

Waingaro Hot Springs:
Woke up after the second morning and headed North again in search of our last nights stay in New Zealand. We spoke with some really great Kiwis at a "Kiwi House" (a Kiwi-bird sanctuary) and they sent us on our way up to Waingaro Hot Springs. After discovering that the little yellow sections of the road on the map meant "Dirt Road", we finally pulled into the Waingaro holiday park around 5:00pm and found an amazing set of hot pools and waterslides. We all tramped down to the pools, the kids slid around and I soaked my healing back in the hottest pool I could find.

That night we dined at the restaurant (which was kinda bland and icky: the "Garlic Bread" was a chopped up hot dog bun) and had a few beers with the locals. I can't stress this enough: If you come here, stay at the the remote holiday parks if you can. You'll meet the local Kiwis and they're all very pleasant and interesting.

Awoke the next morning, dived in the hot pools, emptied the bowels of Spuckler for the last time and headed back to the land of the Auck.

Auckland - San Francisco:
We checked into security four hours early just to make sure I wasn't going to have a proctology exam and miss the flight. All went well and the flight, though really long, was un-eventful. Landing in San Fran was even more surreal than landing in New Zealand. Lots of police presence and kinda grumpy people,... not to mention all the cars were on the wrong side of the road!

I think one of the best things I took back from NZ was the ready smile and the "g'day!" attitude. I'm going to try and piece all of my thoughts together of this trip into a coherent and blog it in my regular blog later this week.

Thanks to all of you who wrote during the trip and gave suggestions and laughed at my pictures. We really had a great time and it was cool knowing you were kinda there with us.

Kia Ora!

Spence.

Deb finds a cozy spot on the return leg of the ferry ride.

Te Papa Museum in Wellington. Very cool place.

Deb and the girls pose with a large obsidian sphere....

Incredible Mauri wood carvings.

Deb found a truly massive mollusc.

The natural sciences portion of the museum is beautiful. Whale bones and I-beams with club-lighting... way cool.

This is part of the fossil exhibit. The lighting was kinda dark but the fossils were amazing.. look at the teeth on that whale/dolphin creature in the center...

More fossils... I wish I could have taken these back to my buddy Michael, I don't think he has a full Ichthyosaur skeleton in his living room... yet.

High Speed Sushi.

The coolest car ever made. Mercedes "Smart". Un-available in the US due to it's extremely high gas efficiency.

Moonset over Wellington: 4:20am.

Driftwood beach we found on the way to Urenui.

Kenna looking for a stick.

This one makes me feel peaceful. Warm sea breeze, quiet lap of waves on the beach.

Violence breaks out at the beach between warring tribes of silly women.

Deb's wide open for kenna's attack.

Kaya prepares a salvo...

Deb returns fire..

What a great day...

Deb talking with John and Mary Anne.

Great contrast in the sand.

Kenna Lindsay, Warrior Princess.

Deb and the girls find a floating log and bring it back to shore..

The conquered log..

Kaya's Mussel Bite...

Heading to Waingaro Hot Springs..

This farm (30 Acres) was going for NZ$300,000.00

The clouds in New Zealand as we prepare to leave this magical land....