So I arrived in Auckland sick on a Wednesday. I was also scheduled to go on a bus tour two days after I arrived. Fortunately, I was able to push back my bus tour a couple of days. So, most of my time I spent lying around my hostel recovering. Fortunately, my fever broke two days after I arrived. I recovered some more until Monday morning when I caught the Magic Bus to start my tour. This tour would take me through the following places: Waitomo, Rotorua, Taupo, Wellington, Nelson, Greymouth, Franz Josef, Queenstown, Dunedin, Lake Tekapo, and Christchurch. I would have to move everyday except for an extra day that I spent in Wellington. It was a bit too grueling, and I would plan it differently next time.
So while I was in Auckland, I did take an aerial view of the city. Here is the pic.
At the first stop of Waitomo, I did the abseling (rappelling) activity. Here is a pic. Also, there was some nice scenery in this area (and pretty much through all of New Zealand). There is a picture of that as well.
That evening, I arrived in Rotorua, and went to this traditional Maori (the original locals) dinner. Here is a picture of their “village.”
The next morning outside of Rotorua, I saw this hot springs area similar to Yosemite National Park.
Here is more countryside in the Rotorua area. New Zealand in general is a beautiful country.
From Rotorua onto Taupo, then onto Wellington. On the way to Wellington, I took a snapshot of the Magic Bus that I rode so much.
And here is a bad picture due to clouds of the mountain that was Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
So I got to Wellington (my favorite city in New Zealand. It reminded me of San Francisco since it had hills, earthquakes, and a seeming progressive atmosphere.) and spent two nights there, the only place I would spend two nights! I used the one full day I had to take a Lord of the Rings tour. The tour showed various sites where the movie was shot and explained the heavy digital editing that took place.
Here is the quarry where they built huge sets of the some of the cities in the movies (it does not look like much now). The next pic shows photos of how the place looked when the sets were still up.
They also showed the spot where Orlando Bloom (Legolas) did a bunch of publicity shoots. Um, so I had one taken myself.
And we got to see the real boat that was used in the new King Kong movie by Peter Jackson. Here it is (sorry, couldn’t get full shot).
Let’s see, so the next morning, I took the ferry across from the North Island to the South Island. Here is a picture on the ferry with Jochan (hope I spelled his name right), a guy I traveled with a little. From the South Island, we caught the Magic Bus again.
Now, my memory is starting to run together, but on the way to Nelson, Greymouth, or Franz Josef, I got to see these pancake rock type formations.
Here are some pics in Franz Josef where there is a glacier. I was going to get helicoptered onto the glacier, but it was canceled due to bad weather that day. These are the pics I took walking toward the glacier.
Let’s see, then I went to Queenstown. I wanted to do some paragliding, but it was too windy, so no luck for me. The next day, I went on to Dunedin. Along the way, some people did bungy jumping. Here are two pics of before and after of one of the guys jumping.
Anyway, this was the world’s first bungy jump. According to my bus driver, business was very slow when they first opened. So they fixed this by giving people free bungy jumps if they jumped nude. Apparently, there were quickly long lines of naked people. They had to cancel the promotion eventually because it was too popular, but it did help start their business.
Once I get to Dunedin, I took a wildlife tour and saw albatross, sea lions, and penguins! Here are a couple pics.
And as the bus was leaving Dunedin, we stopped at supposedly the steepest street in the world! Here is a pic.
From there, the Magic Bus went to Lake Tekapo. In Lake Tekapo, sheep dogs where very important for herding the sheep before they started using fences. Here is a picture of the monument to this effect.
And here is a great shot of the mountains surrounding Lake Tekapo whilst standing near the top of one of them.
I also have some great video, but cannot determine which video is which on this computer. So I will try to update this post later with that. *Updated* Here is the video! Keep in mind we were pretty happy to get to the top after wandering for about 1 and a 1/2 in high winds. *Updated*
From there, I went onto Christchurch. Here is a picture of the war memorial there as well as an interesting river surrounded by trees.
The day after I arrived in Christchurch, I flew to Auckland. I then flew to Honolulu the day after that.
At any rate, here are a couple of thoughts about New Zealand.
One, like I mentioned in my Australia post, I met a girl who had been sick (seemed like fever on and off, bad upset stomach after eating, headache sometimes) for two weeks when I last saw her in Christchurch. She seemed to be getting better, but very very slowly. Hopefully, she is well by now. Anyway, this just seems to illustrate the interesting illnesses a person can get going to new places and just the stress of traveling.
Two, New Zealand is a beautiful country and I would like to see it again sometime.
Three, New Zealand is kind of like a large tourist trap (it is their largest industry), and I would try to get away from this next time.
Four, they have lots and lots of sheep. 
They have lots of hills as well which would be fun to hike over.
Alright, that is it for me. So the end of my trip draws near. I leave Hawaii on Friday for San Francisco and will be back in Chicago Monday evening. I am fearing very large reverse culture shock. sigh…
It was just styled that one time and I have not bother to since then to do it.
