Australia

Ok for some reason blogger doesn't seem to be working...I've tried for the last 3 days to get some other pics up on the site and it's not letting me. It's also the first time i've had to do the pics indendently of debs so perhaps that's part of the problem...But i'm going to post what worked and try and update again another time but for now...our final post (part 1) We had an amazing time in Aussie. We toured melbourne to whitsundays, into the outback and finished in cairns with a few days in the tropics. The pics start in the outback...the hot, dry outback. And champagne sunset at Uluru (aka ayres rock)



We spent a night under the stars.

Going clockwise and starting at the top we've got emu, camel, crocodile and kangaroo at the overlander steakhouse.


And into cairns where deb and I blew away the competition to win these great tees (and 10 free drinks - rock on us)
And our final days in aus...spent the way all days in the tropics should be. Chilling by the pool in cairns at sophia and mandeeps hotel (we figure that hotel guests only sign was just a suggestion...)

So I'm home now and deb's off on the south island of NZ with her family and Tyler. It's weird to be not together (after a lot of togetherness) But it was an incredible year.

November in Wellington

Last month in wellington already! A Good time as always. We moved out of our luxury apartment and moved back in time to first year when we moved into the university residence...So cheap and so cute for us in our little twin beds.

Katie had us over for a delicious roast dinner.

The north american alliance out on the town.

Christmas is here. The great - but slightly budget wellington santa claus parade. And christmas in our dorm room.

Bye bye Webb st. Our last night there we went to see kiwi band evermore play but since we had laready cleaned had to sit on the floor and not touch anything...nothing like a tui on the floor...but hey tui tastes good anytime.

New Plymouth and U2

Our last new zealand roadtrip - sad times! Off to New Plymouth to say good bye to morgan and then on to auckland for the concert of the year (and 10 months in the planning!)

Beautiful Mt Teranaki and Egmont National Park

From here we went on to Auckland to prepare ourselves for U2...gotta look good for Bono
That's not juice in those bottles ;)
We re-met up with Eddie and Val who had also gotten tickets.

We love Bono (and Yvonne who let us crash in her guest room and cooked us an Yvonne special brekkie before driving back to wellington)
And we're off...well sort of. A classic kitchen move locking the keys in the car. But luckily AA was there to (once again) rescue us and get us back on the road.

Corromandel, Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Tongariro

Well our second last road trip in NZ. We combined three long awaited trips to make 10 days on the road hitting our last few kiwi hot spots.

We took our first magic trip to the corramadel in northern new zealand. We started in Auckland and headed out to the beaches (notice deb's shirt...that's for you devon). Our first pit stop was auckland's mount eden.


Classic New Zealand!

We made a stop at hot water beach one of the coolest places in NZ. There's a thermal hot springs under the beach so it heats the water and riases it back up creating natural hot tubs on the beach. Watch out for the tide coming in though...the ocean is not so warm!

Next stop cathedral cove (we've been seeing postcards for this spot since we first arrived here and we're excited to see it looked just like it did on the cards)

Next stop Paeroa - where they make the unique NZ drink l&p. And from there back to auckland where we did our second bungy of the trip - off the auckland city harbour bridge! Very exciting and a great experience (still scary but not quite as traumatic)

A few stops in auckland that we missed the first time around. First Wendy's for a square burger and a spice chicken. A much missed canadian fast food treat...followed by dunkin' donuts timbits. Good times. And then the real highlight for kitch the real shortland street! Shorty is a evening soap on here every day and we've both become pretty addicted so were excited to see the real street.

Our next tour was a kiwi experience out to the east coast of new zealand. We had a maori homestay on our first night out on the cape.

From there we went to the most easterly point of NZ and were literally in the middle of no where...where we did nothing. Great times playing cards, walking to the ocean and of course a tui fuelled dance party at night.



Just hanging with the pigs at the eastenders farm stay.

From there we went on to NZ's longest wharf and a hollywood encounter with the town where whale rider was filmed.


Our next stop was back to taupo where we did our second chance to try the Tongariro crossing. Commonly referred to as the best one day walk (or tramp) in New Zealand I like to call it..hell.

Look at the enthusiasm at the beginning of the walk...little did we know what was to come...

Like we went back to canada....only worse.


Knee deep snow and gale force winds.
And Debi makes it to the beautiful blue lake (cant you see the beautiful blue lake? Oh you cant through the blinding snow and ice? Good thing she risked her life for this view!)