Traveling with Ellen

  Good to be headed home Lots of thoughts as I end this trip. Until a few days before the end of the trip, I never felt 100% The heat on the first day, combined with the rainforest and feeling faint, throwing up did not do much to set a positive tone for the trip Food never seemed to agree with me.  Wayne kept kidding me about how little I ate, but nothing seemed quite right. Breakfasts were all buffets and the food looked tremendous.  It was pretty much, anything you could want to eat, but...the only thing that seemed to want to stay down was corn flakes and a piece of bread. The boat ride to the great barrier reef made me seasick.  I've never gotten sick on a boat, no matter how small or big or waves or bouncing.  The rolling didn't help.  I guess I should count as positive that I was abled to go down inside the mini submarine but I was sweating and hot but managed to keep it together until we surfaced. We had an amazing Bush Dinner with rib eye steaks an...

  Breakfast at 6 am, on the bus at 8:30 am for a tour if Auckland and the museum. Our last full day in New Zealand and our last full day of the tour.   We were promised sunshine, but it didn't quite work out that way. BWe had intermittent heavy showers and some limited sun but it was still an interesting day. After briefly being shown some of Auckland, we had a 9 am tour, with a private guide.  The museum is dedicated to all those who fought in ANY AND ALL wars fought by New Zealand going back to the Boar Wars. There was also a great deal of history in the museum about the Maori culture and their interaction with the white man.   The names of all those people who fought in New Zealand wars  Made by Australia and given to New Zealand  Maori carvings He can shoot a picture and sit down at the same time  Sir Edmund Hillary's medals from various countries  The extinct MOA bird which is related to the Kiwi bird.  Also a member of the emu...

The spiral ramp leading down to the opening of the cave 7:45 am and we're on the bus.  This afternoon we'll reach Auckland but on the way, we visit the Ruakuri Caves. The cave was discovered by local Māori tribe between 400 and 500 years ago.  The guided tour through the Ruakuri Cave starts down a long spiral ramp to the bottom of the cave. This leads to a room full of stalactites, and rare limestone formations that have been created over millions of years.  There are also glowworms which are larvae which over a period of 11 months grow into flies.   Our guide, through this 1 1/2 hour walk down into the cave, turned on walkway lights periodically so we could follow her.  Many times we were in total darkness so that we could see the glowworms.   There's a stream that runs beneath and there were people blackwater rafting below using tubes, in darkness! For my east coast friends, you'll know Lutay Caverns and for some on the West Coast who have been ...