Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season filled with lots of carrot cake and cheer! We hope you and yours are enjoying all the festivities. We are having a lovely Summer Solstice, spending a quiet holiday on a New Zealand farm. Peace! Debbie and Jude

Auckland

We just spent three days in Auckland. It was great to be in a city, especially an city as internat'l and diverse as Auckland. There are people here from all over the world, especially Japan, Korea, China, and Thailand. And as a busy city, there is almost continual bustle and noise, which is pretty different from Berkshire County. The view from the window of our hostel was a caged bungy jump, just a little different then Adams.

The city itself straddles a small stretch of land between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea. We took the Coast to Coast Walk, a ten mile walk through the various neighborhoods, up Mt Eden, One Tree Hill and into Cornwall Park, from the Eastern shore to the Western. The volcanic cones form hills that have been turned into parks from which the city is laid out in vast panorama.

Whakanewha Regional Park, NZ

Last Saturday we took a little camping trip to Whakanewha Regional Park here on Waiheke Island. The park's Maori name translates loosely as "Cover ones eyes from the setting sun." The pronunciation is a story unto itself. If you want to know how to pronounce this (and you're over 18) just send us an email, and we'll relate the sordid details.

The Park, regardless of how it is pronounced, is absolutely lovely. We had a sweet little camp site next to the beach on a soft green lawn. We laid about in the sun, took lots of walks through the forest on some great trails. The wildlife of New Zealand is dominated by birds, and we've seen so many incredible birds both here and in Hawaii, but rarely have we had our camera ready to actually shoot one, so this picture is especially pleasing. This bird is called a kereru, and it stood still long enough for us to fumble out the camera and take at least one credible shot.

The walk out of Whakenewha on Sunday afternoon was through a steady rain. We ended up on this tiny road in the middle of nowhere, looking for a bus stop. After a few minutes of walking, we spied a bus shelter at the end of McMillan Road--a tiny and scruffy little corner of the island. We had a hard time believing that a bus would actually come to this desolate location late on a Sunday. As we were pouring over the posted schedule, a sweet little old lady appeared out of the mist and assured us that the bus would be by shortly. In a few moments, we were joined by four other riders, and the bus arrived right on time to take us away. Gotta love reliable public transportation!