First stop a farmstay bed and breakfast outside Auckland.
At a Maori show in Rotorua.
Thermals and bubbling muds, Rotorua.
From Seattle, we flew to LAX, thence overnight to Auckland with Marlys glued to movie after movie. Picked up rental car at ungodly morning hour, navigated in lost loops for awhile, and finally arrived at a terrific pre-arranged B&B (Parnassus Farm & Garden) about an hour south of Auckland for showers, naps, vegetarian stew lunch, and walks around the farm's orchards, gardens, and animal havens. Pigs, cows, pigeons mostly. The farm manager and a local vet treated a cow while we were there .. a birthing gone dreadfully wrong; Marlys was braver than I about watching all this. Over the next couple days, we zig-zagged in a southerly direction via Hamilton, Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Huka Falls, the desert road, ski area near Ohakuni, Palmerston North and thus onto the Kapiti coast to stay with friends near Paraparaumu and take jaunts from there into Wellington.
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First stop a farmstay bed and breakfast outside Auckland. |
At a Maori show in Rotorua. |
Thermals and bubbling muds, Rotorua. |
 Marlys with a woodcarver at a hot springs conservation area. |
 Marlys on the SegWay machine at Lake Taupo. |
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 Huka Falls. |
 Granny and The Kid at Huka Falls. |
 The desert road ... wild, desolate volcanic plateau. Closed for bad weather and snow flurries both the day before AND the day after we snuck through. |
Owl Rescue and Exhibits Center known as Owlcatraz; photos not allowed inside, so the sign of occupant names had to do. |
 Friend Jo's son Jono cut school for a day (with permission) to play guide for us in Wellington. Here Jono is cavorting outside Te Papa, a fantastic Wellington museum. | 
Jono's sister Emma (who had visited us in States summer 2006) joined us eventually to help with the tour guide chores. |
 Jo teaches in the local primary school; we visited her classroom, answered questions from the kids, and watched as they sang some Maori songs as Jo played the guitar. |  |
 More of Jo's students. |
 The family cats. |  Out for tea! |
 A display of fabrics and clothing similar to what the Stansborough woolen mill on the outskirts of Wellington in Lower Hutt fabricated for costumes for the Narnia movies. |
The firm's looms date from the 1890s. The Stansborough wools come from especially bred sheep unique in the world. |  |
 Costumers for Lord of the Rings movies, having seen the firm's fabrics in New York, thought it was serendipity to the extreme that the firm was located on the spot in New Zealand where most filming locations were scheduled; thus the firm was commissioned to produce many of the cloaks and other clothes worn in that trilogy. |
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