Travel day. Took a 9 seater plane to Invercargill. Flew normal plane to Christchurch and then on to Auckland.

We went on a guided bird watching walk on Ulva Island today. It is a 7 minute boat taxi ride south of Stewart Island sitting in Patterson inlet. The island is one of the only islands nearby where all bird predators have been removed and the island is much like it was in the beginning of time. We learned that there are plant species living there that date back 200 million years, to Gondwana times. We observed Stewart Island Robins, an endangered species, Variable Oyster Catchers, Rifleman birds, bell birds, Tui , Grey warblers, Saddle Back birds (Very Rare), Tomtits, Red and Yellow Crowned Parakeets(Kakariki), Weka birds that look a lot like a Kiwi , Kiwi tracks in the mud, Kaka birds, wood Pigeons and Brown Creeper birds. The island is home to many species that rarely exist anywhere else in any numbers. They took 4 years to get rid of the rats and other predators from the island. We saw several species of Orchids including the Bird’s nest, Spider, Bamboo, and Green Bird varieties.

We decided to take the short, flat, day walk around the island today. We hiked Ryan’s Track to Thule bay and past Observation Rock before returning to town. This was an incredibly hilly and muddy walk; we obviously did not get the entire or correct scoop on the terrain. Norm slipped and splashed mud all over Cindy’s jeans as he tried to anchor himself by grabbing on to her. As our feet and legs were really sore and tired at the end of walking 6 hours, we chose to relax and have dinner at our Bed and Breakfast.

We drove to Invercargill for a small plane flight to Stewart Island. This is the largest island south of the South Island of New Zealand. It has places where the Kiwi can be seen night or day (or so we had been told and read- truth is there is one spotted during the day about twice a year). We chose not to go on the night walk as we did not want to get back between 1:30am-3:30am. Stewart Island’s one town and harbor are located on Halfmoon Bay. Its full time population is 300 people. Stewart Island’s 425,000 acres, (the size of Singapore), is primarily Rakiura national park (90%) and 5% is Maori. There are 275 miles of hiking trails on the island. We just walked around the town today. The man from our hotel told us he knows when to pick up visitors when he hears the airplane flying onto the island.

We took a boat, a bus and another boat to Doubtful Sound for an all day trip. This place was named by Captain Cook as a doubtful harbor and he never sailed in to examine it. It covers a huge area, much larger than Milford Sound. It is another Fiord carved by the glaciers centuries ago. One branch alone is the size of Milford Sound. The scenery was beautiful. We had a spectacular view of the “Southern Matterhorn”. It was a beautiful sunny day which was the opposite of what we experience in Milford Sound the prior year with its rain and waterfalls. When we got back, we had another nice evening with our friends.

We flew to Queenstown and drove to Te Anua. We had a beautiful view of Lake Te Anua from the front of our hotel. We met up with Henk and Trudy from Amsterdam, who we met in Indonesia, for dinner and a trip to the Glow Worm caves. The ceiling was very low and even Cindy had to duck. There were thousands of Glow worms.

Drove from Aukland to Rotorarua. This is a town built around the thermal pools and hot mud baths in the area. We saw Pohutu Geyser shoot today. This is a very interesting place to see. Hot boiling water everywhere, steam and bubbling mud. They also have a wood carving school and a Maori weaving school on the grounds. The only requirement to get in the wood carving school is to know who your Maori family is, the name of your tribe and the name of the boat your ancestors came on from Tahiti. It then is a 3 year school. This land is in the middle of the Bay of Plenty here in New Zealand. This evening, we went to the Tamaki Maori Village for a cultural show and dinner. We saw what a Maori village looked like before the Europeans arrived. Beautiful views driving here and very nice at dinner. The only problem here is the smell of Sulfur. This is due to the thermal activity all around. You can see steam coming from all of the lakes and rivers due to the heat here. Right outside our hotel is a huge thermal pool.

We were supposed to go on a trip on the bay this morning but it was freezing to us and we decided to stay off the open water. We instead went on a small ferry boat to Russell. This is one of the first settlements on the North Island. It used to be called the “Hell Hole” of the Pacific due to its drunken lawlessness. It became the sight of the first church in New Zealand and the place where Captain Cook first set land on the North Island. This is a small one horse town with old buildings and small streets. Three main streets make up the town.

We also saw the Hundertwasser public toilets in Kawakawa. They are made of Mosiac all around the walls and floors. What a thing for a town to be known for, its public toilets. Oh well, every town wants to be known for something.

Drove to the Bay of Islands today. We stay in Paihia. We went to Keri Keri. This is one of the oldest settlements on the North Island. We visited a chocolate factory and hiked to Rainbow falls. With not a lot of sun, there was no rainbow today. We then went to the Puketi forest to see lots of Kauri trees. We got rained on a bit but the canopy was so dense that it stopped a lot of rain. On the way to Paihia, we stopped at Kawiti Cave to see hundreds of glow worms. They only glow when they are hungry to attract insects and other bugs. They put out long web like strands to catch insects which they keep alive and slowly turn to soup before eating them. The cave has been in the same family for 15 generations. We heard lots of stories of granddad and all of the relatives. The story goes that the cave was found by the wife of a mean king who was running away and hid in the cave. She was later found and adopted by the village. The walls were carbon dated for fire marks and seem to date back to the 1600’s. What a long time for the same family to live on the same place. Another nice day but the first rain in a while. The rain was predicted by the glow worms and the bugs coming into the cave to escape the coming rain. The cave guide predicted rain soon. It has gotten a bit colder in New Zealand than in Australia or Indonesia. We are actually wearing long pants here. Hard to believe after going almost 3 weeks without wearing shoes or long pants.

We spent the day taking it easy and sight seeing. We went to the war memorial on top of a high hill in Whangarei. We did a canopy board walk around the Kauri trees at A. H. Reed Park. The largest tree is hundreds of years old and extremely tall. We hiked to a small waterfall.

We went diving at Poor Knights Island. Poor Knights got its name from the pudding that Captian Cook was eating when he looked up and saw the islands. We dove in a sheltered bay full of kelp forests. We saw several sting rays and fish we have not seen before. The dive was fun but cold. The temperature was 17 centigrade. We have been used to diving in 28 degree water so we were really cold even in the heavy suits we rented from the dive shop. The underwater scenery was great, just too cold. We decided that we were not cut out for cold water diving.

We drove to Whangarei (pronounced Fangarei.) It is a small town with a harbor on the river. We visited small shops and enjoyed ice cream. We hiked around Whangarei falls and watched children jumping in the river from a tree rope. We then went to our hotel in Tutukaka. This is a small village supported almost totally by its harbor and scuba divers who dive the two shipwrecks and the area and the Poor Knights Islands.

Off to Auckland today. We rented a car and stayed on the correct side of the road. We only had time to have dinner due to the flight length and time zone changes. Auckland is called the city of sails. The harbor is full of sail boats. It has a pretty harbor.

We went to a small mountain town called Montville. We had home made cheese, lunch with a view of the valley and chocolate covered macadamia nuts. On the way, we passed Steve Irwin’s Australaia Zoo. There is a big billboard of the crocodile hunter saying “Crikey”. Just like on TV. The parking lot is huge. Lily and Mia tell us that it is a fun park. That evening, we saw Lily and Kara play “Netball”. This is basically a basketball game where you can’t dribble with the ball and there is no backboard to use. It was a fun evening. Both kids played well even though Kara denied it.

We took time to take photos at Mount Kut-Tha, Kangaroo Point and Roma Gardens. We also watched their daughter Mia swim today. Swimming is not usually a big thing except that Mia has two broken wrists and has waterproof casts. Fun day.

Back to Brisbane. This is the 3rd time at Brisbane airport this trip. We finally get to see our friends Graeme and Annette again. We took it easy today. We met their children’s chickens, mice, cats and dog.

Today was get together day. We had lunch with Grant, a friend we met on Heron Island who lives in Sydney and his friend Anita. We had dinner with Vivian who was our guide in Guilin China and her boyfriend Matt. She has since moved to Sydney and e-mailed us to let us know. We heard the Sydney Chamber Orchestra this afternoon. The director is a bit of an eccentric who we are told spends his time listening to Ozzy Osbourn and Metallica. Yet his performance of Francophelia (mostly French chamber music ) was very classical. The Chamber Orchestra travels and performs the world. We never expected that the chamber performance would be considered a sold out show.

We spent the day at Taronga Zoo. The animals have the best view of Sydney. We took a ferry to the bottom of the zoo and then a cable car to the entrance. They do not seem to have the same appreciation for the Opera house as we do. We saw the play “Festin” tonight. It was about a birthday celebration that goes very wrong. It was very good and we are told has several very popular Sydney actors.

We spent the day on a sail boat tour of the harbor and the opening from the Pacific. We were the only passengers on the boat for the morning sailing. We saw the Orchestra at the Opera House tonight.

Off to Sydney today. This is such a nice day. We stayed at a small hotel in the Rocks district. We went to the Opera House tonight to see the Sydney Ballet. It was a tribute to Jiri a Czech choreographer. Turns out he had a sense of humor. The final number had the entire crowd laughing.

The view from the Skyrail is still incredible.

We noticed a large Monitor Lizard along a walking path. The local guide told us that it was a Goana. We were later told that most lizards in Australia are called Goana’s. We visited our favorite Opal shop again. The owner remembered us just from our name and asked how Chicago was when we called to verify hours.

Off to Kuranda today. We took the Skyrail roundtrip.

We decided to try scuba diving again as we were told the water would be 28 degrees celcius. They did not lie. The dives were so good that we did 3 dives that day. We had a ball and were really glad to be back in warm water.

After a real nice time on Heron Island, we move on to Palm Cove. Wow, has this place grown. It looks like Sanibel Island before the hurricane. It is no longer the sleepy little beach town we remember from our last two visits. The beach is still nice.

we have been on Heron Island, but where are the herons? Back many years ago, a man thought the egrets were herons, and so Heron Island, which is located within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia.

We took a helicopter for 25 minutes over to the island, after our long overnight flight from Bali to Brisbane to Gladstone. The first afternoon we participated in a reef walk for a couple hours. Then we had drinks on the Wistari Terrace, Tropical Storm was the featured drink of the day, and dinner in the Shearwater restaurant. All meals are included and very good. At 9pm there was a star gazing session. The skies were fairly clear and the Greek stories of the constellations were interesting. We listened to the musicians Michael and Tim every evening as they played 2 sets, early and later in the evening.

We scuba dived twice our first full day. Wow, the water, at 73-75 degrees seemed frigid compared to the 82 degrees we had in Indonesia. We saw barramundi, trumpet fish, coral trout, reef sharks, a cowtail stingray, a moray eel, and a host of others. In the afternoon we went on the island walk. The island is only 1.8 km in circumference with a beautiful white beach. The green turtles are beginning to come to shore to lay their eggs. This is at evening high tide which is currently after 11pm, so we did not stay up late enough to go searching, but we did attend a slide show discussion on the process and how to find them. There are also Loggerhead Turtles that will be nesting soon. The vegetation on the island consists of a Pisonia Tree forest where many are over 300 years old. A hat is recommended while walking through the forest area due to the large numbers of nesting birds. There are also Casuarina trees, Pandanus palms, and octopus bush.

We took a day to relax at the pool overlooking the beautiful coral reef. We finally warmed up from the scuba diving. The weather has been delightful, warm during the day with a cooling off in the evening. Of course all days in Australia are “fine” per the weather forecast. In the afternoon we went on the bird walk to learn about who is making what noises all day and night. In fact, earplugs are provided if needed to sleep as you keep the windows open for the cool refreshing air. Up to 70,000 black noddy terns are currently nesting and laying eggs. The females sit on the nest and the male hunts for the perfect leaf to add to the leaves and bird pooh cement. A study was done that determined that on 25% of the leaves are deemed suitable for the abode. She will drop the imperfect leaf and send him off to hopefully select better the next time. We observed and it appears to be true. It is also nesting time for the mutton birds who are sea birds except for when nesting. They fly in at night, crashing everywhere they land as their legs are set far back for sea travels. Then they begin their mournful cries, which make the island seem like it is inhabited by ghosts. The eastern reefs Egrets have their babies now along with the Buff Banded Rails. The silver eyes are the small greenish birds with the rings around there eyes who will not sit still for a photo. Other bird inhabitants include the Sacred Kingfisher, Silver Gulls, Brown Boobies, Lesser Golden Plovers and Bar tailed Godwits.

We then went on the sunset cruise, with five other guests to view one of the most fantastic sunsets ever. Grant, who we met on the helicopter over, played amazing Spanish classical music on his guitar. Champagne, cheese and crackers topped it off.

Some more time in the sun with a coral workshop in the afternoon. We are a couple weeks too early for the annual coral spawning which will occur 4-5 days after the full moon in November.