March 14--STEEP!!!

Despite the thousands of years of human interaction, it all begins anew, as if for the first time, when two people fall in love.  --John O'Donohue

    Wellington has many STEEP hills. When our bus driver was motoring us up the windy streets to Mt. Victoria, at one point the back end of the bus drug on the pavement. Since I was in the back seat, that was a bit alarming! The drive was worth it. The views from the lookout are amazing:

    The bus then took us back down into town to the Museum of New Zealand, where we wandered for a couple hours. One section was about immigration to NZ. There were 37 (THIRTY-SEVEN!!!) tiles inlaid in the floor listing human atrocities on other humans that caused a flood of immigration. The first:

    The most recent shown:

    Of the 37 tiles, most of them have been in my lifetime. So depressing. When will we humans stop hurting and killing each other?!?!?!

    We rode the cable car to the Kelburn Terminal high above the city and began the very steep trek down through the magnificent Botanical Garden. We saw a very cool sundial:

14 numbered blocks in the semi-circle

The "figure 8" has the dates of
the year

    The directions tell you to stand on the day of the year with your back to the sun, put your arms overhead with your hands together, and they will point to the local standard time. It works! Very cool!

    The walk down through the gardens was grueling (steep!) but beautiful with a huge variety of vegetation, giant trees hundreds of years old, an enormous rose garden in full bloom, even passing through an old cemetery at the end. 

    We went back to the hotel and rested, then went out for another Thai meal. It is an early-to-bed night because we board the ferry early tomorrow for the South Island. 

        Leta

March 13--On the Mend, I Hope

Where there is great love there are always miracles.  --Willa Cather

    I finally succumbed to the need for a doctor when my patchwork of meds did little after three days. More on that shortly.

    We drove today from Rotorua to Wellington. The scenery here is breathtaking. I saw a lot of trucks hauling logs, as that is the 4th largest industry here. I spent many a happy hour with my dad as a child in a log truck or hauling lumber to customers. We stopped at a geothermal mud pool with bubbling, sulphur-smelling mud, interesting but gross. We next visited Huka Falls, mighty power and beauty. 

    We arrived in Wellington and checked into the Novotel. Once our guide Wayne got the others settled into dinner, he called an Uber to take him and me to the medical clinic. Thankfully it wasn't too busy and I was seeing a doctor within an hour. He said my lungs are clear and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and nasal spray to treat my sinus infection. The total bill was about $400 NZ, around $250 US. If this helps me sleep and stop coughing, it is worth every penny. I'm so thankful for Wayne's help. He's done this many times already for others on this tour. 

    Wayne and I stopped by a Woolworths to get food since we missed dinner. Woolworths here is a grocery store. I am now enjoying my first potato chips since I left home, quite a treat. 

    Time to shower, rest, and heal. 

        Leta

March 12--HOT!!!

Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish. 
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    I actually had a napping opportunity, much needed with my head cold. 

    This morning we started out at the Whakarewarewa Thermal Village, an indigenous village built on top to thermal hot springs. What an interesting tour! The residents have thermal boxes that serve as very fast ovens and a pool in which they cook things that need to be boiled, again, speedy quick. There are geysers in the area, and they use the hot water cooled to feed a community bath. You can hear the water boiling in the pools.

Our guide, this box had food cooking in it.

The food boiling pool

The community bathing pools,
everyone gets naked together

The geysers, and a not-too-hot swimming hole below

    Next we went to the AgroDome where we had a lesson on the many different kinds of sheep and saw one being sheared. The best part of the presentation was the herding dogs. If you look closely, you'll see two dogs standing on top of sheep--that's what the dogs do when they are working a really big herd of sheep. 

    The kingpin of sheep, top center, is Merino. My husband will attest to how wonderful it is. And they are considerably larger than most of the other varieties. I certainly didn't know there are so many different kinds of sheep, and the wool has different uses. For example, one is best in clothing and one is best in carpet. Some wool won't burn. All very interesting. 

    Next we went to a presentation about NZ jade. Of course there was the opportunity to buy assorted jewelry, but there was nothing that really struck my fancy. 

    Three of my travel buds and I enjoyed spicy soup, bread and beer at the Pig & Whistle Pub, then walked back to our hotel for some rest time. 

    The evening was a delightful dinner and presentation by the Maori (pronounced mow-ree, rhymes with how-ree) tribe. We saw the warriors float down the stream in their war canoe chanting:

Then we had probably our best dinner so far, a huge buffet with so many great items. Our host spent a lot of time telling us about the Maori customs. After the super dinner, we went to the auditorium where Maori men and women performed assorted dances for us. They also explained their weapons, which were used for hand-to-hand combat (no guns in the very early days). It was a very high-energy show. Then our host led us back into the woodland path to see the spring that serves the village and the glow worms in the woods, quite enchanting. In anticipation of the glow worm viewing, our guide Wayne taught us this childhood rhyme:

I'd like to be a glow worm.
A glow worm is never glum.
How could you be unhappy
When light shines out your bum?

    Tomorrow we head to Wellington. 

        Leta

March 11--Sore Nose

The earth has its music for those who listen.  --Reginald Vincent Holmes

    I have a Life Is Good shirt that displays Holmes' quote. We have experienced a lot of earth music on this trip!

    Well, dang it, I managed to catch the head cold that has been circulating through the group. So I was fairly out of it today, not much appetite. 

    We drove from Auckland to Rotorua, which included about three hours actual driving time, but with pit stops and snack breaks, got us to our hotel around 4:00. One of our stops was Tirau, noted for its giant corrugated metal figures (below). The NZ countryside is quite lovely. It was surprising to me that we saw many more cattle than sheep. They also have no billboards trashing up the landscape. 

    I was weary and slept much of the drive. I got some meds so hopefully tomorrow will be a more enthusiastic day. My big accomplishment of the day was doing a load of laundry, for which my fellow travelers should be very thankful.

    Perfect weather continues!

        Leta

March 10--High Up Again

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.  --Zora Neale Hurston

    We spent the bulk of the day accomplishing a three-hour flight from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand. (By the way, this was our 11th flight of the trip; 5 more will bring us back home.) The flight was delayed. New Zealand is extraordinarily picky about what enters the country. They even had an adorable beagle sniffing everyone's luggage. And we lost two hours flying here, so we left the Sydney hotel at 7:30 and got to our Auckland hotel at 5:30. We had a buffet supper, then four of us went up the Sky Tower Auckland, a speedy elevator trip up to the 53rd floor. 

A block from our hotel

    We saw the Harbour Bridge, New Zealand's largest bridge, and the Westhaven Marina, the largest yacht marina in the southern hemisphere. 

    Behind Lanie and I in the photo below is the most recent volcano to erupt in NZ, 600 years ago. 

    The weather here is perfect, and I am eternally grateful for much lower humidity!

        Leta

March 9--"Ladies, You Must Get Off"

Love is like infinity: You can't have more or less infinity, and you can't compare two things to see if they're "equally infinite." Infinity just is, and that's the way I think love is, too.  --Fred Rogers

   Today was a "free day," which I spent sweating. Sweating is my super-power and I've been outdoing myself. 

    I chatted with our guide and confirmed our plans to go to Manly. We walked down to Circular Quay (pronounced 'key') and just made the ferry to Manly. That offered us outstanding views of Sydney and the harbour. A North Head hike had been recommended to us, so we took the #161 bus there and walked the nature loop which gave us outstanding views of the coastline and city.

At North Head

    We caught the bus back to town, but stopped off at a cafe for a beer. While we were there, we got caught in a shower, but soon the sun was back out and we reboarded a bus for Manly Wharf. The bus stopped at the Wharf, but Lanie and I did not realize it, so we sat on the bus waiting for it to go. Finally the bus driver came back and very kindly said, "Ladies, you must get off. This is the end of the line." So now we can add being kicked off a bus to our adventures. 

Manly Beach

    We walked from the Wharf to Manly Beach, where we took a seat on a bench and soaked in the beauty, and watched folks strolling by, surfers and beach volleyball. We walked over a mile down the beach and decided our next move was to return to the Ben and Jerry's store we saw at the beginning of our walk. We enjoyed two scoops (you have to eat ice cream FAST here) and then returned to the Wharf to catch the ferry back to Circular Quay. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and had we been counting sailboats, I'm betting we would have been up to at least 60. 

    From the Quay, we hiked back up to our hotel to cool off and rest. Another recommendation we had was for Chat Thai at the Quay, and I was able to get us dinner reservations. It was a mixed experience. There was a large party right behind me that was incredibly loud. Many of the dishes I would have liked either had shrimp (yuck) or were very spicy hot. So I had crab fried rice. It was bland, and I only identified a few bits of crab. Oh well, the shiraz wine was good. We picked up some chocolate treats at the convenience store across from our hotel and went joyfully to the hotel and showers. 

    Goodbye, Sydney. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand. 

         Leta

A nice way to 
end our time in Sydney

March 8--SOH!

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it. 
--Rabindranath Tagore

    We started the day with a brief bus tour of Sydney, then went to the Sydney Opera House (SOH) for a tour. We had a super guide who told us all about the building, which was quite controversial, used previously unheard-of geometry, and was completed in 1973. The Concert Hall was the highlight. The carpet, seats and acoustic panels hanging from the ceiling are all purple. We got to see them move the panels into place for our matinee concert. 

    We then went to the National Opal Museum, where we learned about the geology and mining of opals. Of course, that was followed by the opportunity to buy. I think I was one of the few to leave without a purchase. 

    We walked along the waterfront and settled on a lunch place where we had our first mac 'n' cheese of the trip. This required a celebratory beer also. 

    We walked the short distance to the Opera House and headed up to the top section of the Concert Hall. There are no bad seats. The acoustics are so perfect you can hear everything everywhere. The symphony and the guest violinist had no amplification. It was amazing. 

    After that we wandered around the Botanical Garden. It is a huge park with lots of grassy area and assorted plantings here and there. We roamed our way back to the hotel, had a salad at the hotel restaurant, thoroughly enjoyed a shower, and headed to bedtime reading and/or basketball watching. 

    We did 5.5 miles today, ready to rest!

        Leta

The concert hall, from our seats

The very old gum trees seen around the Garden