These are the trip updates I wrote when Jen and I went to New Zealand in 2004. They were on the old Michigan Martins site, so I pulled them off and put them here.

Monday Afternoon, 2:00 pm January 26 (6:48pm EST on Sunday)

Hi all,

We just arrived at our hotel in Auckland NZ after spending three days in Rarotonga (that update follows…)

We’ll be here the next three days, so if anything urgent should come up, the hotel number is 64-9-379-5132 Room 667 (not sure of the country code to dial here.)

We flew across the international dateline between the Cook Islands and New Zealand this morning, so we departed Sunday morning and arrived Monday morning on a 4-hour flight.  Not much to report on New Zealand yet, since we just arrived.  Read on for our Cook Islands stop.

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Saturday evening, 6:30 pm  January 24.  (10:30 pm EST)

Hi all, sitting here on the porch of our little beach bungalow in Rarotonga, Cook Islands.  We are staying at the Muri Beach Hideaway for three nights, and tonight is our last night.

It was a long journey to get here – a little over 25 hours of travel.  Mostly because we had to take a seven hour layover in Los Angeles before catching our flight off to the Cook Islands.  We had a luggage incident on our way here courtesy of Northwest Airlines.  While we went to LA, Jen’s bag shuffled off to Tampa, then toured on to Auckland ahead of us, and then came back to Rarotonga. It didn’t get here until this morning, so we had to buy a swimsuit and a few clothes to tide her over until it arrived.

Rarotonga is a beautiful little island in the South Pacific.  We decided to stop here on the way to New Zealand to break up the trip a little bit.  Since it’s a stopover, we only stayed three days – long enough to check it out.

Our hotel is on the beach of the lagoon, with 4 small islets just offshore.  I took a really neat picture of the beach view with an “interstitching” feature on our new camera.  It allows you to take multiple shots of a panorama and merge them together as one long picture.  It will look really neat on the website when we get back.

We rented a couple of scooters on our second day, an excellent move.  We’ve spent all day yesterday and today cruising around the island, stopping to see the sights and take a dip once in a while.  Then we venture off the main island road to cruise the backroads, where there is a second discontinuous loop further inland.

Today we snorkeled on Muri Beach just down the road from our hotel in the islands best snorkeling area.  The dogs on this island have homes, but rarely hang out at them – they’re more like community dogs.  A “beach dog” was hanging out with us when we went snorkeling, she swam out with us and paddled around with us for about a half an hour.

Rarotonga has an interesting culture, everyone is English speaking and they have a native language called Cook Islands Maori.  The only phrase I’ve heard used is “kia orana” (hello.)  The people are friendly, and there are a lot of New Zealand citizens vacationing here.

That’s about all I have for now, getting ready to make the next leg of the trip for Auckland tomorrow, when I’ll probably send this e-mail.

Talk to ya later!

Dave & Jen

Hi all – just getting this update out that I wrote two days ago.  It is currently Monday afternoon, and we are in Nelson (North end of the South Island) after taking the ferry over from Wellington to Picton yesterday.  Today, we’re going to head South along the West coast.  I’ll try to write another one in a day or so…

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Saturday evening, Wellington

Hi all,

We stayed in Auckland for a few days and had a good time there.  Hopped on a few buses and explored the city a bit.  We went to an underground marine exhibit that had penguins in a simulated arctic environment, and also a huge aquarium that you walked thru in a glass-domed tunnel.

Great harbors in and around Auckland, and a lot of boats.  It is known as the City of Sails for all of its boating enthusiasts.  They are very big on the America’s Cup races here, and we had several people speak of pride about their recent victory. They were surprised that we were indifferent.

We scoped out a few of the brewpubs in Auckland, and found a gem in Galbraiths.  They cask condition all of their beers there, and draw several of them on hand-drawn faucets.  They had a neat beer called Bitter and Twisted, strong and flavorful.

Then the fun started – we rented a car for the rest of our stay here, cancelled our intra-country flights, and took to the road.  It was the best decision we could have made.

I jumped into the wrong side of the car, took the wheel, and started out on the inner city streets of Auckland.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard to adjust to as I thought it would be.  Yeah, you’re on the wrong side of the car, but you’re also on the wrong side of the street…  The center line is still nearest you, so the orientation is similar.

The hardest part to get used to is that your turn signal lever is operated with your right hand, and your shifting is done with your left hand.  I’m still hitting my windshield wipers (left hand lever) frequently while trying to signal a turn, and sometimes reaching for my door panel grip to shift (thankfully, it’s an automatic…)  There have been multiple incidents of approaching the wrong door to enter, on both our parts.  Fortunately, they still have the accelerator on the right, brake on the left.  No problems there.

So we hit the road for the Coromandel Peninsula, at the Northeast end of the North Island.  It was about a 3 hour drive to Whitianga, where we hung out and stayed the night.  The drive was mountainous, twisting and turning constantly – great scenery.  They have a beach South of Whitianga called Hot Water Beach.  Two hours before and after low tide, you can dig a hole in the sand and enjoy your own little hot water spa.  Unfortunately, we got bad advice from the motel owner on when low tide would occur, and missed our opportunity to dig a spa.  A bit of a disappointment, but it was still a beautiful beach and worth the visit.

Then we took another twisting, turning drive down to Tauranga and spent the night there.  Mostly shopping and hanging out.

Yesterday (Friday here) was activities day.  We went from Tauranga to Rotoura, where we visited Hells Gate, a really neat geothermal park. It was about an hour walk around boiling pools, mud volcanoes, sulfur ponds, and hot water falls.  We caught a lot of pictures and video, but I wish I could have recorded the smell. It was mostly sulfurous, but it varied in different areas.  At one point, it smelled just like a hog farm.

It started raining, and continued to rain the rest of that day.  It couldn’t have been a better day for our next activity:  blackwater rafting in the Waitomo Caves. (They call it rafting, we call it “tubing.”)

After about a two-hour drive over to Waitomo, we joined a tour group that took us to the caves.  We suited up in wetsuits, helmets with lamps, and goofy boots, and then grabbed our inner-tubes and headed into the caves.  It was about a two-hour trip, with some walking and some tubing.  The entire stretch was a stream within the caves, and we walked when it was shallow and tubed when it was deep enough.  But the most fascinating part was the glow worms.

Glow worms are the larvae of a mosquito-like bug.  They use light to attract other insects as their prey, emitting a blue-green light.  As you’re passing thru the caves, you look up and see what looks like a bright, heavily starry night in blue-green.  It was an incredibile experience – exploring caves, tubing, and something unlike anything you’ve ever seen all wrapped up in one trip!

That evening, we traveled to Turangi, South of Lake Taupo, where we hung out with some locals at a brewpub there.  This particular brewpub was part of a motel complex, so we got a room and stayed the night right there.  Great times!

Today (Saturday) we headed down to Wellington.  Along the way, we stopped at a Wool outlet that had pretty good prices on New Zealand wool products (cha-ching.) We got some really neat stuff there.

The rest of the day was spent exploring around Wellington, mostly hanging out.  Tomorrow, we’re going to visit Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand here in Wellington.  It is supposed to be quite a place.  After lunch, we’ll be turning in our rental car here, hopping on a ferry, and heading over to the South Island.  We pick up another rental car on the other side and hit the road again.

We’re not really sure of our itinerary in the South Island yet – basically, we’re going to make our way down to Queenstown, probably on the West coast, and then come back up the East coast to Christchurch, where we will depart for Sydney Australia in a week.  It is a lot of fun to kind of make up your itinerary as you go.  You learn a lot about where to go and what to do by talking to locals, and by getting a feeling for where you are.

Overall, it has been a great trip so far, and we’re looking forward to even better things to  come.  Most of the people we have spoken to have said that the South island is even prettier than the North.  It would be hard to believe given what we’ve seen so far!

Talk to ya soon,

Dave & Jen

Sunday, Feb 8 10:00AM Sydney

Hi all – we just arrived in Sydney last night, just getting this update out this morning that I wrote at the airport and on the plane…

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Saturday, Feb 7 3:00PM Christchurch International Airport

Hi all,

Just got some time to sit down and write a little while we wait for our plane to Sydney.

Today wraps up the New Zealand segment of our trip.  Now we have stops in Sydney, Australia and Tahiti coming up.

The last week in NZ was incredible.  As we toured the North Island, several people told us how much prettier the South Island was.  We thought the North Island was beautiful, and that they probably just said so about the South because it was not where they lived – I mean, how much more natural beauty could there be than what we had seen in the North Island?

The first day we stopped in Nelson, the hops-growing region of New Zealand and home to several breweries and brewpubs.  Unfortunately, we arrived on a national holiday, and most of them were closed.  We did manage to find Harrington’s Brewery open, and bought some very good beers there.  For the most part, NZ’s most popular beers are bland lagers like everyone drinks in the US, but with the help of a guide book, we were able to find the craft breweries here.  It rained most all day here, but we still had fun in Nelson.  It’s a very eclectic community of artists and colorful personalities.

By the second day we understood what the people in the North were saying about the beauty of the South Island.  We spent the entire day touring and stopping for sights, traveling down the West Coast.  Again, it rained most all day, but it didn’t dampen our spirits or diminish the scenery.  In fact, there were many waterfalls down the mountainsides as a result of the rain that were spectacular sights.  From what the locals said in Nelson, they really needed the rain, as it has been dry forever.  It had gotten to the point that the City Council was buying the dairy farms to stop them from production, as they are a big drain on the water supply.

We visited two glaciers on the West coast and hiked about 1-1/2 hours to one of them.  Fortunately, the rain let up at times and the skies cleared for some great pictures from those sites.

We also stopped and walked across a long swing bridge over a river – the kind you’d see in an Indiana Jones movie or something.  You had to pass people crossing the other way.  Great stuff to play on a slight fear of heights.  On the hike on the other side of the bridge, we walked in a 15-foot deep fault line that appeared from an earthquake in the 19th century.

Next stop was Queenstown, probably the most touristy of all New Zealand cities.  Lots of shopping and attractions.  The highlight of this stop was taking a gondola up the mountain, then riding a three-wheeled luge down a hilly, twisting track.

From Queenstown, we went on to Dunedin.  I finally got around to buying a telescoping fishing pole and a license so I could do some trout fishing in some of the streams we crossed over.  There were some idyllic streams on the West side that I would have loved to fish.  After buying the pole, we headed inland out of Dunedin and stayed a night at Lake Tekapo.  I fished a little in some of the streams, and then that evening in the lake, but didn’t catch anything.  On this trip, we also visited Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in NZ and took some neat pictures.

The next day, while fishing a stream on the route up to Christchurch, I snagged a branch in the stream, and while trying to free my lure, snapped my fishing pole in half.  That ended my fishing adventure, scored a goose egg.

Finally, we stayed last night in Christchurch and explored the city a little.  Today, we ordered a Venison steak and an Ostrich meat appetizer at a nice little restaurant.  First time ostrich for both of us, and it was very good!  It tasted very much like beef.  They farm-raise deer here, and the venison was very mild and tender enough to cut with your fork – excellent.  Strangely enough, they view deer as a nuisance animal in New Zealand, and believe that they are harmful to their flora.  For years, the government “culled the herd” by shooting deer from helicopters and leaving them.  One local told us that they still do this, although I haven’t confirmed this yet.  Now there are deer farms throughout the country.

We bought some really nice wool clothing, I got a shirt and a sweater, and Jen bought several items.  They are very high quality, and very expensive.  Few of the locals actually buy the stuff – mostly tourists.

Overall, I would have to say the New Zealand is one of the most stunningly beautiful countries in the world, and would recommend it to anyone thinking of visiting.  The sheer range of terrain here, from rain forests to snow-peaked mountains, to glaciers and huge, glacier-carved lakes, and then even deserts, is amazing.  And if you come, tour the North Island first and the South Island second.  Definitely rent a car and explore on your own.

Fun New Zealand facts and tidbits:

*We had twelve days here, and it isn’t a very big country, but all of the locals seemed to pity that we had such a short stay.  They are all used to taking much longer vacations.

*They are very proud of the Lord Of The Rings movies here.  The headrests on the Air New Zealand planes have the Return Of The King logo on them, and say “Airline to Middle-Earth.”  There are guidebooks available that tell you where to go to see where scenes were filmed.  We never did do any of this…

*Harringtons Brewery was featured in the guidebook as the brewer of beer for the movies.  They watered down a stout to 1.1% alcohol, and it was the beer that was quaffed in the scenes.  They needed something very low alcohol so the crew wasn’t getting bombed in multiple takes.  Harringtons still brews and sells this low-alcohol beer.  Amazingly, it had some flavor to it – more than your typical macrobrew.

*They call boaters “boaties”, truckers “truckies”, breakfast “brekkies” and chocolate “chockies.”  Sometimes when you come across someone with a very thick accent, it is really difficult to understand them.

*The Superbowl got quite a bit of attention here.  Most any bar had it on the big screen, and a lot of people watched it.  Radio and TV coverage was more than I had expected.

*For all the mountains, water, rainforests, etc, there are no snakes here, no dangerous animals like lions, bears, or alligators, and only one or two very rarely encountered species of poisonous spider.

*Gas is very expensive – a fill-up cost $60-70 NZ ($42-50 US.)

*I actually grew to appreciate traffic rounders instead of four-way intersections.  They flow very smoothly at minor intersections without stopping.  They still use traffic lights at downtown intersections.

Talk to you later,

Dave & Jen

Hi all,

The first set of pictures from the New Zealand trip are on our website, with a new address that is much easier to remember – michiganmartins.net – The old address will still work as well.

I’ll be putting the pics up in stages. The first set is from the first stop – Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

While I’m at it, I figured I would write about the last week of the trip, including our stops in Sydney and Tahiti.

Sydney, Australia Feb 7-10:

This was our second time in Sydney. We were there before in a 2000 trip to Australia, and enjoyed the city so much that we decided to visit again while we were down under. This time, we rented a car for one day and ventured out of the city to the Blue Mountains, about two hours outside Sydney. The main attractions (for which they line up tour buses) were a waterfall and a rock formation called “The Three Sisters.” As it turns out, these sights were actually a bit anticlimactic after touring New Zealand – the everyday scenery of the NZ tour tops anything we saw in the Blue Mountains. But it was a nice day out nonetheless.

Sydney is truly a world-class city – we managed to get around the city better this time, with a better understanding of the bus system. We had a great nightlife in the Rocks District, courtesy of a pub trail drawn up by the Malt Shovel Brewery. The trail toured some very neat old pubs, known as “hotels” because in the old days in order to serve alcohol you were required to have beds.

Jen enjoyed the shopping in the outdoor markets on Sunday, and found some nice souvenirs.

We also got some nice pictures in the harbor area with the bridge and the Opera House to improve on some picture attempts from 2000. Having the tripod with the digital camera really makes a difference, especially with the night shots. Still have a lot to learn about getting those exposure settings right, though…

Tahiti, Feb 10-13:

This comes as a surprise to everyone, but we found Tahiti to be a huge disappointment.

First of all, they have no world-networked ATMs, so getting cash from your bank account is impossible. Everywhere I have traveled in the last ten years has networked ATMs, but not Tahiti. Luckily, I had $60US in my wallet that I was able to exchange at the airport, so we could get enough money to get to our hotel. Then we had to find the American Express representative on the island to get any money.

While the island itself is beautiful, the city of Papeete is a dirty, stinky, congested little city. We couldn’t rent scooters because the government had banned their rental, so for one day we rented a very expensive, very poor rental car and toured the island.

We were in search of beaches – the beautiful, long, white sand beaches and clear water that you envision when you hear “Tahiti.” There were none to be found. The beaches were rocky, and there was a lot of coral in the water. We had even asked at the information center where the best beaches were.

On the positive side, two decent things we found on the island were the food vending trucks that roll out at night and serve up everything from pizza to crepes to Chinese food, and the city market that sells everything from tourist trinkets to meat and fish.

Tahiti was by far the most expensive stop on our trip, easily 2x as expensive as anywhere else we visited. I believe this is because their economy consists primarily of payments they receive from the French, as a result of the nuclear testing done in the South Pacific from the 60s to the 90s. This money has created hugely inflated prices, and serves as a disincentive for the island government to dedicate resources to making Tahiti an attractive tourist destination.

The sister island of Moorea is prettier, with better beaches and less congestion, but there is not much to do there in the way of nightlife. And, if you want one of the white-sand beaches, prepare to pay at least $300 a night for a nice hotel, because they have them. We were able to rent a scooter on Moorea – it was twice as expensive, five times older, and one-third the power of the scooters we rented on Rarotonga.

In general, if it is tropical weather, white-sand beaches, and crystal clear waters you seek, save yourself thousands and head to the Caribbean (Cancun has been our experience.) You’ll find a better shopping and nightlife scene as well.

Ironically, we spent one more day in Tahiti than we had planned to. We missed our Friday 2:35 AM flight out, and wound up leaving Saturday 2:35 AM. This also caused us to miss our direct flight out of LA to Memphis the next day, so we wound up flying out at 10:30 PM on the redeye, stopping over in Detroit, and arriving in Memphis Sunday morning. That gave us a 10-hour layover in LA, which was saved by our friends Lee and Lorri Debrabander. They live in the LA area, and were nice enough to come out to the airport, pick us up, and treat us to a nice dinner in Manhattan Beach!

Finally, after two nights in a row of sleeping (kind of) on planes, we were home – ahhh, home. Of course, our bags weren’t – Northwest left them in Detroit when we connected. They delivered them later that day.

Overall, despite a disappointment with Tahiti, this was by far the best trip we have taken. New Zealand is just incredible. We are planning on going back sometime in the next several years, hopefully when the dollar gets stronger.

So check out the pictures, and check back about once a week for updates. We took a lot of them!

Talk to ya later,

Dave & Jen