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).

The Itinerary

I've added an itinerary to the right side of the blog page. This is the current plan and probably won't change much since changing airplane tickets is expensive.

By the next post we will probably have left Boston and most likely will be in Denver.

Liftoff

We've finally bought our first set of tickets, so I guess plans are finalized enough to give a rough breakdown of where we are going and when. These logistics are pretty boring to write about so I'll just bullet point it (all dates/times are local):

• July 31st: Somerville lease is up, and we become nomads (but still nomads with jobs if only briefly)
• Aug 3rd: We end our jobs and go to San Diego for Mekayla's cousin's Bat Mitzvah
• Aug 7th: We fly from Los Angeles to Brisbane via Auckland, NZ
• Aug 9th:
  
• 9AM: We arrive in Brisbane feeling like it is who knows what time.
• 10PM: We get on another flight for Darwin, Australia. No idea what we do in between. Sleep? Eat? Surf?
• Aug 10th-15th: Darwin, Australia and camp in Kakadu National Park:

• Aug 16th: Fly to Cairns via Brisbane.

At this point we just have a general idea of renting or buying a car and then trekking down the East Coast to Melbourne (about 2000+ miles) camping along the way. We'll certainly spend some time snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef though we aren't sure which part of it yet. We plan on mostly following the coastline down through Sydney and Blue Mountains National Park, but the road will probably take us off the coast from time to time.

We haven't bought our tickets from Melbourne to Auckland, NZ yet, but have a vague date in mind of Oct 2nd.

I'll try and have more story and less list in future posts, but this seemed like some practical information to get out to everyone.