Four days left!

We have a mere four days remaining in New Zealand, and are running through a mixture of emotions. We are looking forward to seeing everyone back home and exploring the US a bit, but we are definitely going to miss many things about NZ and a number of people here as well.

Our general route back to Boston goes like this:

1. Hawaii: I can't wait to get away from winter.
2. US West Coast: We have weddings to go to in Seattle and LA in Aug and Sept, so we'll be wandering down the coast.
3. Colorado: Probably go up through Utah because it's supposed to be scenic and amazing.
4. Some random route through the southern portions of the US to the East Coast.
5. DC, NY (state, probably not the city)
6. Then Boston.

The general plan is to hit Boston before Thanksgiving. All of this is of course subject to change with no notification. :) And it is interactive. For instance if you are in say Kentucky, perhaps you could alter our route in your direction by offering a floor to sleep on or a backyard to camp in. :)

But enough un-subtle hints.

We have also finished sorting through and editing our 15,000 New Zealand photos (I am not exaggerating). We're going to spread out the posting of the best of them so nobody is overwhelmed (us included). The first set takes you through all the places we have gone tramping (backpacking). And features such pictures as this:
The second set are various special occasions (like my 30th birthday) and look a bit like this (this is actually Grace's picture):
You can view them all from here. We will probably put up some more just before we leave, and then put up the rest after we reach the West Coast (of the US, not the rain soaked paradise of New Zealand's South Island).

Happy 4th of July... It's snowing.

While everyone is enjoying the summer sun we thought we would break your revelry of northern hemisphere chauvinism (I read that recently in a book) with some greetings from our wintry wonderland.

Of course, really snow here in Christchurch isn't quite the same. Being on the coast means even at 45 degrees south latitude it is still somewhat temperate. For instance when I said it was snowing, I should point out that none of the snow stuck to the ground because both before and after the snow it rained. It rained a lot. And there were some great 130 km/h wind gusts to keep the rain falling at a 45 degree angle. (I think most of the snow was falling up earlier). Of course a few hundred kilometers away there are glaciers and mountains where the snow never melts.

So tomorrow when you walk outside and bask in the sun's glow for 16 hours of the day please spare a thought for those of us on the other end of the world who just finished celebrating the WINTER solstice.

Most of these pictures have nothing to do with winter, but we were fairly cold in all of them so, here you go.

Mekayla and Caleb under a water fall in Milford Sound.

Me walking on clouds on the Kepler track:
Our hike on Franz Joseph Glacier: