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I just wanted to send a note to all of you and let you know our plans. Our year long journey is coming to and end. We will fly into Roanoke on Dec 14th. We will be in Roanoke for about a week and then off to Chicago to spend time with the children for Christmas. After that we will travel to see our extented family. We are currently working on a job situation that will put us back in Roanoke. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and catching up. We will still have our skype phone number. We will be getting cell phones soon so I will let you know that number when I get it

. Love,

 Jill

Wellington

We took the boys on a 10 day trip to the South part of the North Island and the North part of the South Island. We did allot of driving and saw a lot of things.  We drove passed Sheep World where the pink sheep are.  USA has Disney world but New Zealand had Sheep world.  We didn't actually stop because we have seen sheep sheared but we have the question why the sheared sheep are pink. Who knows.  We traveled down the West Coast and came across a black sand beach. I have never seen black sand. It is because of all the volcanic activity. It was very beautiful.

We then went to Wellington. It is full of free museums.  One of the best is a 4 story museum about New Zealand.It was very interactive .  They also have a wildlife refuge called Zealandia. We chose to go on a night walk. One of the reasons we did was because the native kiwi bird is a night creature. We walked through the park and saw some interesting wildlife. It was a beautiful beautiful evening. We heard the kiwi but never saw one. They boys saw that the kiwi hunt is really a New Zealand Snip hunt.  Now every time they see something about a kiwi they refer to it as a snipe kiwi. We also saw the parliament buildings. One of them is called the bee hive. It was referred to by Forbes Magazine as the third ugliest building in the world.

Wellington is also know as Welly wood ,the movie center of  New Zealand. We visited the Weta Cave. This is where Peter Jackson ( famous director) and some special effects people work. They have done the special effects or worked on  many movies including Lord of the Rings, The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe, Avatar, and District 9 to name a few. They really do everything there. We were unable to see too much because every movie they work on is top secret until it comes out.                                                                

We then took the ferry to the South Island. The scenery is beautiful unfortunately we did not see much of it due to the roughness of the sea. Both Steve and Luke got sick. They had beds to lay on which should have been our first sign that things might be rough. By laying down I was able to keep from getting sick. David, however, had no issues. The South Island was cold and some of the mountains were snow capped. We took a boat tour to see wildlife . It was enjoyable but the penguins weren't out which disappointed the boys. We did see various birds, seals, and hector dolphins which are endangered.                                                   

We went back up to the north island and the ferry was fine this time thankfully.  We saw more geothermal activity because the boys hadn't seen any. They also went black water rafting. it is where you wear a wetsuit and raft through caves ,float through narrow places, and jump off waterfalls. They loved it. We then dropped them off so they could fly to Australia for 2 weeks. I'm sure they will have a blast.

West Coast

I took David and Luke to the West Coast to see the Kauri trees and the Tasman Sea. I plugged in our destination into the GPS and off we went.  Steve does not like to rely too heavily on the GPS but I do. I knew the way but the GPS  wanted to take me a different way so I decided to follow it because it knew the shorter way. What the GPS doesn't know is what is gravel in New Zealand and what is not. What started out as a short cut took 30 more minutes due to several gravel roads it took me on. I could not believe it. We did get to the information center which was off a gravel road and the lady gave me directions to the Kauri trees. I was to go back out and turn left. Sounds simple. Well it is if you go back on the same road which I did not. I went on a different  road. All gravel roads look the same. This one, however, ended up being a logging road with deep ruts.  I said I don't remember this. My son said well you are on a different road mom.  He thought I wanted a different road. He told me he knew I had some directional issues but didn't know that it was that bad. Needless to say after that he questioned every road I took.  We did see everything we wanted to see. We stopped in a little tavern for lunch and had fish and chips. A couple of the people recognized that we were foreign and visited with us. They were very nice. It was a cozy play with a fireplace to which the owner's dog came in and laid down by.  I guess in New Zealand they don't have the same health codes.  We happened to drive by a rugby game and stopped to watch. I can not believe how rough of a game it is. Several guys got injured. One guy was laying on the field holding his hamstring. We assumed he must have pulled it. The trainer came over and looked at it. He had him stand up. He took a water bottle and just started squirting water all over the injured area. Then he had him shake his leg. He then told him he was fine so off the player went. David said it must be magic Maori water.  Who knows but it did make for an interesting day,

Adventure

We went to the middle of the North Island for a few days with David and Luke. It rained frequently so we had to work around that .  We took them to Hobbiton.  They were allowed to take pictures but they can't put them on the Internet because they are working on a new set for the movie the Hobbit.  Apparently movies sets are highly secretive.  The only thing new were the  fronts back on the Hobbit holes.  Maybe after the movie comes out they will be allowed to post pictures. We also went to Gravity Canyon.  Steve, David , and Luke went on the longest zip line in New Zealand over the canyon. David also bungee jumped. I , however, was content just to take pictures. I could not believe my son did an 80 meter bungee jump.  I'm glad I was focused on taking pictures with his camera. I tried to upload the video but it just won't interface. Here are a few  pictures of our time.

getting ready

the canyon

David and Luke

David and Luke arrive safely from the states . I survived yet another trip to the Auckland airport.  We plan on leaving for the central part of the island tomorrow. We hope to show them some things that we have yet to see.  Today we took them to the glow worm caves. They were very impressed. It is an amazing site.  It has been raining here so the cave had more water in it. We had to wade in knee deep water. I never new I was such an adventurer.  We also went the Whangarie Falls for about my 6th time but it is something everyone needs to see.  David had his first driving lesson and it is fun to watch someone new to driving on the left. I like to count how many times the windshield wiper gets hit instead of the blinker. That's how the Kiwi's know who the tourists are. I will update with more adventures as they happen. I think that bungee jumping is on the agenda(not for me)so it should be fun.

Graduation

The Johnston's

David and Aunt Jean

Uncle Joe,David, Aunt Beth

My Clan

David and Luke Campbell

We are now back from graduation. We had a great time. I just wanted to put a few pictures up for everyone.  I tried to get as much in as I could but I didn't get to see everyone I wanted. We also missed church due to family and numerous people flying out on Sunday.  My body didn't like the time change and I had to resort to my first sleeping pill to get over it.  I only drove on the wrong side of the road once. I can't ,however, say how many times I hit the windshield wiper instead of the blinker. I am now back to driving over here and have to retrain my brain yet again.   We will be having  David and Luke here in a week and plan to do some more traveling.  More posts will come on our adventures.

Megan and Rachel

We had the opportunity to entertain Rachel's friend, Megan, last week. It was a fun week. We showed her some of the sights here in Whangarie that we had already seen but we also took her to a local cave that we had not been in. We read that it self guided. We were also told that you could see glow worms. It was really fun. The cave was very open and fairly easy to navigate. The only problem was we had only one flashlight so we had to work as a team to keep the light in the right place for all of us to see. There were glow worms galore. They look like white Christmas lights. We did, however, have to walk through water and it took days to get our shoes dry.

Steve had a few days off so we went to the Corumandel Peninsula. We attempted to experience the hot water beach. When the tide is out you can dig a hole in the sand and hot water will seep in. The waves were too high that day and no hot water was found. The next day we went to Cathedral Cove Beach. It was just beautiful. A few of the Narnia scenes have been filmed there. It was peaceful and beautiful. Probably the most beautiful beach here.

We then decide to go to an exotic bird sanctuary. We drove down a gravel road to a farm. The sign said that it was open but no one was there. There was another sign that said we are sometimes gone but feel free to look at our birds and if you enjoy please leave a donation. We did look and enjoy it but we never saw the owners. Only in New Zealand would you see this.

We then traveled down to see a butterfly garden. It , however, did have owners present. We were able to see lots of beautiful butterflies. We had a fun time and really enjoyed being able to share our New Zealand experience with Megan. We love having visitors. Hint, Hint.