Animals on our Trip!

Ready for more pictures from our New Zealand/Australia trip? Well here you go.

Before we tell you about our day-to-day adventures in Australia, we thought we'd show you pictures of all the animals we saw, and some that we were able to touch, in both New Zealand and Australia.

This was not on our list of animals to see, but when we saw them in the middle of the Auckland museum we couldn't resist snapping a photo.

Remember that awesome aquarium bus? Well here are some of the other great things we experienced at the Kelly Tarlton Aquarium.

Say "Aaaaaahhh."

Here are some of our penguin friends I told you about. I think we were invading bath time for these guys:

You may not be able to tell, but there's fish in there with Royce. We should have more moving walkways in the world, don't you think?

In Hobbiton, we saw this guy relieved of his winter coat (too bad for him it was winter).

And then we got to feed some of his younger friends.

Aren't they cute?! (And they were so soft--all that lanolin.)

If you know us at all, then you know that we love a good deal. So when we chose from the many Maori Cultural Evening packages available, we chose the one we did because it included free tickets to the Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park. Where you can feed and pet the animals.

This guy was probably overfed because he would not eat--he was only interested in charging at us with his antlers.

I don't think he was too hungry either, but isn't he cute?

Royce and this guy had a special bond.

I love this picture, just because both of their eyes look so creepy.

Now, what's that animal that Royce is petting?

And is biting his arm?

Oh yeah, it's a lion cub. And you could pet it. For no extra charge! And it was awesome.

I didn't venture quite as close as Royce. He was surprisingly not as soft as I would expect. But he sure was cute.

Later we got to see his mom and dad (or brothers and sisters?) eating lunch. Mmmm, raw horse meat.

Kind of glad we weren't on the same side of the fence as them (though I did want to touch the electric fence to see how electric it was. Royce totally didn't understand the impulse).

Lots of animals for a country whose only native mammal is the bat, huh! There was one native New Zealander that we didn't get to see. It would have cost too much extra, and would have been iffy whether or not we would actually even seen it had we paid the entrance fee.

Moment of silence for the kiwi bird. What a funny, little, nocturnal, flightless bird. Maybe we'll catch up with you next time.

Now time for animals actually native to the country where we saw them. Ready for some kangaroos and wallabies and koalas? Here we go!

This is a wallaby. It kind of looks like a kangaroo, but it's much smaller. See the little baby? We saw him crawl into his mother's pouch. It was awesome. And these guys were just wandering around free. They could go into a fenced off area if they wanted to get away from the people, but they were kind of like peacocks in American zoos--free as a bird.

Ok, so he's actually native to Italy. This is a replica of a famous statue in front of a hospital in Italy (although, the picture was taken in Sydney--confused yet?). Rubbing his nose is supposed to bring good luck.

Ok, so that's a bit more Australian, eh? Yup, a real kangaroo.
As is this.

And this. These species, whatever they are, are very docile. Kind of like deer, except more used to humans because they're in zoos.

One more kanga, or is that roo?

Now let's not forget about our reptile friends. This is at an Aboriginal "village" where we had an Aboriginal "experience". More about that to come.

These guys were not free as a bird, thank goodness!

But here are a few birds.

In the Australian rain forest we met a friendly turkey. Hullo there little guy.

We were not a big fan of this guy. It's an emu. They are not shy and they are very pecky. He was trying to eat Royce's shoe here. And then he suddenly sprang up and was almost as tall as Royce. I didn't stick around for another picture.

I bet you've never seen one of these. It's called a cassowary and it's one of the most important birds in Australia (and very endangered). Want to know why it's important? Because when it eats food in the rain forest it doesn't digest the seed completely, so it poops them out and thus acts as a planter of the rain forest. There you go, things you never knew but wish you had.

I don't like birds. Then why on earth am I petting this one? Because, it's a kookaburra! You know the old song: "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, eating all the gum drops that he can see . . . " Classic. There were a few in cages, and a few roaming around free like this guy. And you can bet that I sang that song every single time I saw one! And Royce loved every minute of that, I'm pretty sure.

Ok, enough birds.

Can you tell what that is? Peer closely into the darkness and you'll see a real Tasmanian devil. Also not free to roam around.

Ok, last but not least.

Can you see the baby! Sooooooo tiny! Makes me giddy inside.

Have you bought your plane tickets yet? It was all pretty darn amazing.

Happy day!

I'm not giving up on blogging about our trip (I know I can blog, I know I can!) but I just wanted to share some photos with those of you who did not have the pleasure of being here:




It was such a lovely day with such a lovely bride, and a pretty good-looking groom too :)

Congrats Michelle and Mark! Thanks for letting us be part of your day.

New Zealand

Day 1: Fly to Phoenix, sit awhile, fly to LA, get lost trying to find the correct International Terminal, find it, sit for another while, then finally board the plane.


Day 2: Fly for 12 hours. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Since we left so late (midnight) I actually slept on and off for 8 hours. Plus add personal TVs and we were good to go.
Finally we arrived. Here's Royce on our walk to Customs (so festive)!

Here I am on the bus going into Auckland. So early!


After settling into our hotel, we resisted the urge to sleep and instead headed to the main attraction of downtown Auckland: Sky City Tower.

The view of Auckland was beautiful. Royce and I really liked Auckland. It's the perfect size for a city. Not too big, surrounded by water, lot's of green.

Don't worry, it's perfectly safe up there. We opted for the indoor only observation deck. We could have done a sky walk, which involves walking around the outside of the building, protected from the 750 feet drop only by a harness, but . . . we're wimps. And cheap. (No way I'm paying extra to panic.)

Pretty view, isn't it.After getting acquainted with the city from up high, we wandered the city: gelato on the harbor, Fish 'n Chips in the restaurant district, cultural museums, etc. And then we crashed (at around 8:00 pm, if memory serves correctly).

Day 3: We decided to head out of Auckland and go across the harbor to Devonport.



Where we were able to get a pretty good view of the city.


Our tour guide has lived in Devonport all his life and all but convinced us to move there. No graffiti, free extracurricular activities for schoolchildren such as sailing, and close enough to the city to enjoy it, but far enough away to be able to live a quieter life.


Here we are on top of an old volcano in Devonport.


After our relaxing afternoon, we needed something to do. We didn't feel like looking at art, we weren't interested in the maritime museum, and we weren't in the mood for the zoo, so instead we went to the Aquarium.


So the aquarium itself wasn't all that exciting (it was surprisingly tiny), but we did get to go on an excursion through the penguin encounter (pictures in a later post) and ride this awesome shuttle bus to and from the aquarium. Jealous yet?

Day 4: Wherein we rent a car and drive on the wrong side of the road.




First we drove to One Tree Hill in Auckland. It's, you guessed it, an old volcano. However, there is no longer a tree there. Just this monument to the Maori.

After enjoying the sheep and view on One Tree Hill, we headed Southeast. Our destination: Hobbiton. Yes, like hobits, from the Lord of the Rings. It's the only place in New Zealand that still has the partial set from the filming. And we got to tour it. And we can't post any pictures, but we can show them to you if you come to our house. It was actually more fun than I thought it would be. And it was beautiful, beautiful land. So hilly and green.


After that, we drove a couple more hours and arrived in Rotorua.


Day 5: Rotorua and the surrounding areas are very similar to Yellowstone. The whole area, city and all, is full of thermal activity. The city park has fenced off hot pools and steam holes. If you ever go, I suggest going in winter because it's awesome to see steam rising everywhere (if it's hot you won't see the steam). However, it has a downside from Yellowstone in that everything is privately owned. Meaning, to see one or two geysers and some hot pools costs $20-30 a person. So unless you have a lot of money to burn, you really have to choose just one thermal park and hope it's the best one. I don't know that ours was the best, as none of the geysers went off while we were there, but it sure was pretty.

On the drive home, I saw a sign for Huka Falls, so we decided to check it out. It was so much bigger than I expected (I couldn't get all the falls in the shot).


Back in Rotorua we checked out the government house gardens. I thought it was kind of a cool building so we took a picture, even though I know nothing about the building.


That night we were picked up at our hotel for a Maori cultural evening. We were taken to another thermal village and treated to a Maori presentation and dinner. Royce was chosen as our chief to greet the Maori warriors, but unfortunately I couldn't get any good pictures of it. Oh well. Here are some pictures of us dancing.

Day 6: We left early in the morning so we could see the coast and Bridal Veil Falls (see previous post). Then we headed to Waitomo to see the famous glow-worm caves. We went on a Spellbound tour, rather than going to the big touristy cave where you only get a 15 minute tour. Our guide dropped us off on the middle of the farm and we walked down a beautiful trail to the cave entrance. Before heading into the cave, he started feeding the "pet" eels.

Royce tried to feed the eel too, but he chickened out on holding it.
Then we walked into the cave, where we saw thousands of glowworms. I couldn't get a good picture so you'll just have to take my word that it was awesome. We took a boat into the cave, and once everyone turned their headlamps out it looked like you were surrounded by stars. So, so cool.

We also walked through a dry cave after. It was really beautiful.
Here's the exit of the dry cave.
On our drive back to the Auckland airport, we decided to stop in Hamilton to see the Hamilton temple. Did you know it was the second temple built outside the US? Pretty amazing, eh?


Next: A break in the day to day reporting to show you all the cool animals we saw in both NZ and Australia.