New Zealand

After a week in Australia, we spent a week in New Zealand. Now, I didn't really know that much about New Zealand - except that Lord of the Rings was filmed there.

New Zealand was great. Auckland - ehhh, just a city. But the rest of the country is beautiful with some of the most amazing landscapes I have seen.

The Maori are an amazing people - rich in culture, active and vibrant.

There are more cows and sheep than people in the country. We visited a cow milking farm... New Zealand proves Pizza Hut with most of its cheese and then the old cows end up at McDonalds and Burger King. We also went to an agricultural center and met about 14 different varieties of sheep.

New Zealand is one of the most geothermicly active places on the earth. Below is bubbling mud pits, plumes of steam, and an active geyser.

The tree fern is the national symbol of New Zealand and grows everywhere. The landscape if very lush.

This is mirror lake.

We took a private plane through most of New Zealand. During the trip from the top island to the middle island, you can see many glacier lakes.

Of course, when it is time to land - more sheep.

We did a cruise of Milford Sound. Pictures don't do it justice. You can get an idea of the heights of the walls of the sound from the large boats, that you can bearly see, in the pictures.



From Milford Sound, we flew to Queenstown. Queenstown is full of adventure activities.

The jet boat where we sped along the river where people used to white-water raft.

Then a hellocopter ride to Queenstown and over much of the area where they filmed Lord of the Rings.

In Queenstown, we had to go to the Kiwi center.


After two great weeks, I was back on the plane for the 11 hour flight to Los Angeles. My parents went to Fiji for another week before returning home.