On the Road Again

Sunday we picked up our campervan - a size smaller than the one we had with Irene and Neil. It is the same size as the one we have at home.  We headed north from Auckland and thought we would be getting into a more sparsely populated area.  Well it is more sparseley populated but there are still lots of big towns. The countryside is so green.  There are many orchards, dairy farms, vegetable farms and wineries.  We had to get used to the windy narrow roads again as you can see.

About 3 hours north of Auckland you come to an area known as the Bay of Islands.  This is a beautiful area with about 140 islands( still doesn't beat La Ronge which has over 1000).  We took a boat cruise around the islands. Boat was quite large with two stories and held about 100 people but it looked pretty small compared to the big curise ship parked in the harbour.  On our boat tour we went to the famous Hole in the Rock.  However, it was a little too rough for the large boat we were on to go through that day. The boat does go through on a calm day with only about 2 metres clear on each side

An exciting expeelorience on this cruise was to watch the Dolphins chasing the boat.  They were jumping very high in the air but this was my most disappointing picture taking experience as much as I tried I could never get them in the air.  The best I have is the picture below.

We stopped on an Island that had a very nice Beach.  Did not have our swimming stuff so we just walked in up to our knees.

There is a chain of campgrounds in New Zealand called Top Ten and that is where we are staying.  Very nice campgrounds.  In the Bay of Islands we stayed at Russell which is a very old town and there must have been 50 campervans there.   We had to cross the Bay by ferry to get there.

The hardest thing about booking the campgrounds is to pronounce the names as the North Island is the real home of the Maori culture.  So most of the places have Maori names - sometimes they will have two names - a Maori and English. So the pronunciation of names is a challenge.  Wh is translated into the "fa " sound so here are a couple examples :  Our first night we stayed at Whangarerei which is pronounced as fanjery.  Tonight we are at Whatuwhiwhi which is pronounced fatufifi.  Not sure we got it right yet.

Over the next two day we will go to our furthest point -- the very northern tip of the Island  is Cape Reinga and is very sacred to the Maori culture and here you have the dividing line between the two oceans - Pacific ocean and Tasman sea.   It is about a two hour drive from where we are at tonight and there is a 90 mile beach going up the narrow peninsula to get there.  If we take a bus it will actually drive one way on the beach but we are not allowed to take the campervan on the beach.  So we are still deciding what we will do.  On Saturday we will head back down the other side of the North Island and back  close to Auckland.  We return the campervan on Sunday and the drop off point is near the airport so we will stay in an airport hotel Sunday night.  Early on Monday we will fly back to Sydney, Australia and spend one last day there before heading home on Tuesday. We will fly back through Vancouver and will be back home on Tuesday March 13.  It is hard to believe a two month trip away is coming to an end.

Touring Auckland

On Friday and Saturday, March 2 and 3, Rose and I toured around Auckland. We took a sightseeing bus and then spent time at the Museum and at Eden Gardens.  Auckland is actually built on and around old volcanoes so you see cone shaped hills and deep craters that I hope  you can see from the pictures

One of the highest hills is Mt Eden and that is where Rose is standing by the crater.  You get great views of the city from here.  At the base of the hill there is beautiful garderns - the Eden Gardens that we toured.

From another location on the bus tour we had another great shot of Aukland and you will see the Sky tower  which is the most prominent structure in the city and it is built right in the centre of the city.  It is is still the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere.

Also in the downtown area close to our hote was St Patrick' Cathedral - the major Roman Catholic church in New Zealand.  Sat night we went to Thai restaurant for the second time we really
enjoy the food.

We had planned to pick up our campervan on Satuday but they were forecasting a big storm  "weather bomb"  100 -120 km winds and alot of rain so we put if off until Sunday.  As it turned out the storm was not too bad in Auckland but it did cause a lot of serious damage in other parts of New Zealand.

Don's Study Tour

I haven't posted anything since February 18 as the next day the Health Study tour started.  Our group gathered together in Sydney - there were 7 of us from across Canada and one from Australia who organized the events.  We got to meet with the Consul General for Canada - see the Group photo at this office complex. There are also a couple of other people from Australia in this picture.

We spent our first week in Australia visiting people across the health system - Government, hospitals, clinics, and many health related agenices first in Sydney and then we flew to Melbourne to finish off the week. While in Melbourne Rose and I had a chance to tour the new Royal Children's Hospital that was just opened by the Queen before Christmas.  Quite an impresseive building as you can see from the pictures below.  One striking feature is they have a fish tank that goes up two storie  and is 8 feet in diameter and it is full of colour fish and coral.  I took a picture of the biggest fish in there.

At the end of the first week, the group had Saturday off do what they wanted.  However, most of our time was spent in the hotel as I had to write up a report on the previous week and that is the day Rose and I went to the new Children's hospital and at night we went to a live theatre show - Chorus Line.   On Sunday we flew to Auckland New Zealand.  We had a  great hotel in Auckland and the whole group was on the 27th floor and the on the top floor - 28th there was a lounge where we could have breakfast, wine at the end of the day and we could plan our next steps.  The views of Auckland were striking as you can see:

As in Australia we met with a wide range of people in the health system.  One big difference though is the attention that is given to the Maori people.  The approach has been quite different than in Canada with our First Nations people and it is working  much better.  While there are still many poor Maori people, you  find many prosperous Maori as well.  We visited a major clinic called Whanau House  where they are working with disadvantaged Maori families.  This is a brand new facility - see picture below.

We ended the Study tour on Thursday with a final wind up dinner with the Group. Rose participated in all the social evens and even in some of the study sesions.  She took some of the picutres so that is why you don't see her.

I had final meeting on Friday and then Rose and I toutored around Auckland.  The rest of the Group left to go back to Canada except for a couple who decided like us to stay on for a little longer for a holiday.