Top to Bottom, almost done...

So, we're getting near the end of our time in New Zealand. It has treated us very well! Just over three weeks of work left before we leave our jobs and flat and head for the South Island, hopefully before it snows down there! Today was Carli-Ann's last day working with Tess, the little girl she nannied for this year. Tomorrow, Carli-Ann goes away for two weeks with her boss Jon and his family on their holiday. She will be doing all the driving and most of the personal assisting all the way up to the Coromandel peninsula. Now, we'll tell you what we've been up to the last couple months on the North Island.

My university plans have come together nicely, being accepted into the engineering transfer program at Malaspina university in Nanaimo. We'll move out to the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" at the end of August to live in the basement suite of Carli-Ann's sister Lisa and husband Tom. Just last week we found out that my Plastics Engineering degree from 7 years ago will transfer 30 credits to my university degree. That's almost a whole year's worth!
Last month we were lucky enough to get tickets to WOMAD (World Of Music And Dance), a fabulous music festival up in New Plymouth near Mount Taranaki. It is held in a beautiful, sprawling city park, filled with giant NZ ferns, lakes and hills. At night, hidden coloured lights illuminate the giant old trees like a fairy tale. Bands from 26 countries played on 5 stages, and some of them even gave cooking lessons on a special chef stage! On the second night it began to rain, gently at first, but increasing through the night. As we slept in our tent, the winds grew strong enough to nearly flatten our tent. As the tent bowed in the wind, it pressed it's unwelcomed, cold, wet nylon in my face. In the morning we woke up in an inch of water. Well, Carli-Ann's side was dry. I woke up in an inch of water. All my stuff was soaked, including our camera (the good old thing works again now after drying out!). In the end, the sun came out that day and we were rescued by our flatmate with her car and moved in to her hostel for the last night.

After the festival, we took an early bus further up the country to the Waitomo Caves. These famous caves house heaps of glow-worms and almost as many tourists! After donning wetsuits along with 5 other adventurers (all Taiwanese girls), we tramped through a sheep field until we came to a large hole. Under these fields are dozens of rivers carving out magnificent caves filled with the usual formations, and the ceilings starred with glow-worms. We sat on inner tubes and floated about a kilometre through the cave, going down a couple waterfalls as well.

Immediately after the blackwater rafting experience, we had to get moving to make it to Rotorua that night. Thanks to New Zealands reliable hospitality, hitchhiking there was no problem, and we were even given a view of the city by being driven up the mountain before being dropped off at our hostel doorstep! The next morning we were shuttled out to the coast, where we took a boat 50km to White Island/Whakaari, New Zealand's most active volcano.
About 25km out from land, we came upon about 20 playful dolphins. We found it interesting how similar they are to dogs. As the boat slowed, they seemed to chase it, swimming beside it, jumping around. Much like a dog chases a car (minus the barking). Anyway...this strange, sulphur encrusted island is the peak of an active volcano, poking out of the sea. We were given gas masks and hard hats and told to beware of possible "car-sized rocks hurtling at the speed of a bullet" that it has been known to hurl out when erupting (the hard hats were apparently meant to ward these off). We were given a fascinating guided tour up to the rim of the smoky belching crater complete with eerie stories of disappearing geologists. After a long day, a night bus carted us back to Wellington for work the next morning.

Earlier this week, we took another boat, this time to the nearby Kapiti Island.

We spent 6 hours hiking around this nature reserve, home to some of New Zealand's rarest birds. Along with forest dwelling parrots, parakeets, and other unusual birds we were lucky enough to see one takahe, a big dinosaurish bird (photo above) of which there are only 280 left in the world. Nineteen of them are on Kapiti Island.

I've been eating a bit less brownies at work this week after getting one of my molars pulled out. This is the same tooth that had broken in Ireland, and I got fixed in Kosovo. Unfortunately, a filling wasn't enough to save it and a root canal was out of our budget. The bright side: now I have it as a kosovar souvenir! Stay tuned for a time-lapse video of the healing process...not for the faint of heart!

So, we've been busy but we're almost done with our North Island experience. On May 2 we'll get the ferry from down the street to the South Island where we're going to rent a camper van for 25 days. We'd usually just camp, but it's starting get bloody cold here! And the South Island should be even colder. So we're really excited to travel in style for a change, and to be the ones stopping for the hitchhikers!

We have bought our plane tickets to be on our way and make a long, roundabout trip home. At the end of May (30th), we get a flight to Sydney. It will be our first time in Australia and hopefully we'll get to see a lot of it in the month we have there. On June 30th, we fly to Taipei, Taiwan for a visit to Asia! We'll see my cousin Dave who has been living in Taipei for a while now teaching English. Hopefully he'll have some tips for us to keep out of trouble there! And then finally, we fly in to Calgary, to be in Canada just in time for the August long weekend.

So, we hope to see everyone soon!! (if applicable)
Happy Spring/Autumn in *insert hemisphere here*White Island from our New Zealand album