In the land of the Kiwis

hey guys,

sorry for the delay in updating the blog. On our second last night in Melbourne, we had dinner at Dracula's, a cabaret restaurant with a vampire/Halloween theme. In a way, it was our belated Halloween celebration since we were sailing on the Whitsundays on Halloween night. The food was great, the show was great and the staff really get into character! The interior of the restaurant was awesome too. Sadly we were not allowed to take pictures.

On our last day, we rented a car and toured around on the great ocean road for the day. It was quite the experience driving on the left side of the road! It's fine when you're driving straight, but the minute you turn, it's an entire mental exercise to remember which lane to stay in. Inside the car, some things are backwards but others are on the same side as back home. For example, the gears on the shifter are on the same side but you shift with the left hand. The pedals are on the same side. The worst was the windshield and lane changer "sticks" (can't think of the name right now). It took a while to get used to using the right one. In the beginning when I wanted to signal I kept turning the windshield wipers on!

The great ocean road didn't disappoint! We stopped off a lot to take beautiful pictures of cliffs, water and beaches. We made it down to the twelve apostles. What a sight! Unfortunately with erosion only seven are left, but they are a magnificent sight. Not far from the twelve apostles is another super cool rock formation. On the walking path we even saw a wallaby up close and an echinda, which kinda looks like a stockier, smaller version of a porcupine.

We took the plane the following morning at 6am for Sydney to catch our flight to Auckland. This meant getting up at 3:30 to return the car. It was a rough morning, but the sunrise was breathtaking.

So, here we are in Auckland. We spent yesterday walking around with an English lad from Jason's dorm room. Last night we went to a pub crawl. I am definitely feeling the burn of that this morning...uggghhhhh.

Anyways, we rented a camper van to tour around in for ten days. I am looking forward to trying out that experience!

Sorry I can't upload pictures right now. It was so much easier with the other memory card that turned into a USB plug in. Sadly the new one is just a regular one and I can't find my memory card reader. Photos to come soon!