We left Silver City on the 16 of May driving to Tucson, Ariz and boarded our flight to Aukland aboard a whopper Quantas 747 with 400 other people. Trish, her grand daughter Chloe, and myself. The first picture is chloe standing with Tom Bradley, first black mayor of Las Angeles. A long flight with a marching band from Kansas and much eating and sleeping.
pics are thumbnails.........click for a larger view
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| Sleeping | view from our hotel window in Aukland |
Aukland
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| View from Space Needle | Sculpture | Dinner with nephew Johnathon |
Aukland is a beautiful modern city. We walked around it and were driven around it by Trish's nephew Johnathon, who took us to see his bungalow style house that he is totally remodeling. And he took us out for dinner that night for our first fish and chips! (Trish really liked fish and chips) We road a boat out to visit more relatives (Douglas's wife Carol's sister, and had dinner with them which was very nice.
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| Park | Whopper trees | Sculpture in the Domain |
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| National Museum of Maori Art | Maori boat | The museum was full up carvings |
North Island
The Volcano on the left is photographed from the plane and the one on the right is near the biggest lake on the North Island and i took the photograph from a bus. We traveled for 10 hours on a bus from Aukland to Wellington and it was a very beautiful trip.
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Wellington
When we were on the plane coming home we discussed what our favorite places we visited were and i voted for Wellington. It had a beautiful harbor, beautiful buildings, and overall had a miniture San Francisco feeling to it. We stayed in Jane's Book and Bed 1900 style house way up on top of a hill right at the base of a forest that part of Lord of the Rings was filmed in. Our first day we walked
through the forest and down to the sea shore to the Tepapa Museum!
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| Jane's breakfast table | Tepapa Museum | Sidewalk sculpture |
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| Floating sculture | Sidewalk sculpture | Fixing it |
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| Stone sculpture | George Rickey kinetic sculpture |
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| Foot Bridge | Resting | On the ferry to the South Island |
Traveling to Christchurch
On the way to Christchurch we drove to Nelson (where Trish was born many many years ago)
and spent a day in the rain driving around to see some of New Zealand's best potters. The link below is to a coop pottery.
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| Stupa near Nelson | Kaikura on the coast | Logging |
Grandma and Grandpa at 89 and 90 in Rangiora
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| Rangiora | Bernie and Ellen | cousins |
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| Douglas listening to music | Pavlova! um | Christchurch in fog |
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| Fountain in the botanical gardens | Sculpture in the town square | View from the tram |
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| Contemporary Art Museum | Chloe as a sculpture | Cappucino break... |
Oamaru
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| Auntie Marion fixing us dinner | Living room | Auntie Pat with Trish and Chloe |
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| Cheese factory | Historict district | Bra shopping |
Studio of Donna Demente (the material that uses to make her sculptures out of and what is
draped around everywhere is fruit tree freeze cloth.....really neat stuff)
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Up and down the coastline
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| Rock formations on the beach | Super happy dog... | Typical road |
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| Damed lake | Thai tofu! um | Town sign |
Travels by car
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| Rain forest | Douglas | River going into cave |
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| Sheep crossing road | Cook's peak | Replanted forests |
Such a trip........Wonderful food, wonderful country, wonderful people.
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| Airport fish | Flight to back to Aukland | Landing back in LAX |
