I’ve posted a bunch of pictures of our trip to New Zealand but they don’t mean much without some context. Here’s some of the highlights from the first few days.

We left home for the Melbourne Airport on Saturday morning before 6:00am with two suitcases, two car seats, a couple of carry on bags, two bleary-eyed but well mannered children, and two tired parents.

The Emirates Airlines flight from Dubai to Auckland was almost full even before we jumped on during its brief stop in Melbourne. Twyla had a breakfast of boiled eggs and zucchini muffins for us while we waited for the incoming passengers to go through customs and get back on board.

For two parents used to the annoyances and perpetual discomfort of international travel, the three and half hour flight and arrival in Auckland was eerily pleasant. Peter was a excited as always to fly and spent most of the trip reviewing the airline safety card pamphlet. Once on the ground, a call to the van company left us waiting just a few minutes in the cool, clear Summer weather outside. Then we were on our way to the meet our temporary, traveling home.

The camper van was big, had a manual transmission and a dreadfully sparse atlas of the country’s roads. To Peter’s delight, however, it did indeed have “three beds, a little stove, a little oven, a little shower, a potty, and a fridgratorator” just as the brochure had promised him and as he had recited everyday for the past two weeks. We were off, still full of excitement, with precious few hours before sunset. First mission… find food.

We felt our way to Auckland’s Grey Lynn neighborhood where our friend and native Kiwi, Emma, had recommended a local grocery. We found them ten minutes too late… they were already closed for the day.

We needed to eat but the immediate vicinity provided only two conspicuous options: a pub and an Italian restaurant. Parental instincts overpowering our wheat-averse culinary preference, we opted for Italian, stared in disbelief at the pasta-only menu, and promptly headed to the pub, children in tow.

It was now almost dark and, according to our GPS unit, we had a 45 minute drive to our campsite at Piha, a famous surf beach on the west coast. I don’t know if it was the unfamiliar girth of the van or the absolute darkness once we left the city but the road to Piha was the most narrow and windy I have ever traveled. I remember absolute silence the entire way but I’m not sure if it was because I focused so intently on the road or because everyone else was terrified.

We pulled into Piha Motor Camp just after 9:00PM to the sounds of a huge party coming from the direction of the beach. Regardless, we found a quiet corner in a field, and promptly fell asleep, the four of us side-by-side on the large rear bed.

As a father, I would hope my first thought in a time of crisis would be for the safety of my family. When the siren went off at what must have been two or three in the morning, I’m pretty sure my first thought was, “Holy Shit! Does our insurance cover the camper van rolling into the ocean?” It was a silly thought in retrospect since I was also pretty sure the world was coming to an end anyway.

We found out later that morning that the local volunteer fire department relies on a World War II era air-raid siren to call them in for duty. We unfortunately parked not 30 meters from it on a day when they just happen to have an emergency at 3:00am. We eventually got back to sleep despite the ongoing beach party and were greeted the next morning by a beautiful sunny day.

From New Zealand 2008

After breakfast, we walked to the beach that surrounds Lion Rock. The scorching grey sand sparkled in the sunlight and turned to black mud where ever it found wet skin. A shallow fresh-water stream rolls down from the hills and around Lions Rock before merging with the ocean. It became our play spot that afternoon. The ocean waves were better suited to the surfers than the swimmers but we did see a number of both in the cold water.

Back in the van, we washed up, had lunch, and headed out from Piha back to the grocer that we had missed the previous day. Our destination that evening was a quite holiday park in Manukau, a suburb on the south side of Auckland. It was a good spot to regroup before a longer drive to the Coromandel peninsula the next day.

A recent visitor to our house in Austin…

Picture courtesy of Lolo.

Update 8-Oct-2008: It’s a harmless orbweaver spider. Scroll down to Orbweavers on this page. Remarkable that the picture is almost identical.

Here are some pictures from Lolo’s visit last month. As you can see Peter was very happy have her here. And you can see more of Lolo’s picture’s here, here, here, and here.

Much more to come.

Also, I’m testing out a new video hosting site since Google Video seems to have been abandoned by Google in favor of YouTube. Viddler’s website is fairly easy to use and their terms of service are agreeable. If you can’t see this let me know… I’m still trying to work out the kinks.

Lot’s of new pictures to share. First, a bunch from our Thanksgiving holiday with Twyla’s family. Biggie (aka Juanita), Taleebah, Kayla, Akil, and Dr. Rodriguez visited for a few weeks. Before you view the pics, though, you should know that Akil took most of these. He’s an incredible photographer as evidenced by these pics as well as the portfolio on his website. You’ll find a bunch of the same pics on his blog. Thanks, Akil.

(Note: If you click on any of the slide shows while they’re playing it should take you to the full-sized gallery.)

Nicci came to visit in early December. I had to work more than I expected while she was here but Peter had a blast with her around. The pictures of the beach, the cliffs, and the koalas are from our weekend trip to Apollo Bay via the Great Ocean Road. Good food, windy roads, beautiful weather and views… but we’ll never forget the flies! Read Nicci’s post about the trip, especially Chapter 5!

I was a little skeptical about catching a glimpse of wild koalas on the way home but Nicci had a plan. Heading back home on the Great Ocean Road, we had to double back to find an unmarked turn-off onto a dirt road heading into the forest. She spotted the first Koala not 200 yards later. Peter slept through it but the rest of us had fun spotting them loafing in the trees for the next twenty minutes. When we stopped to get a few pictures, the red parrots made themselves at home on the car.

[Update 13-Jan-2008: Wow! Just found Nicci's pictures from the trip. Her new camera is incredible!]

And finally a couple of shots from the rest of December including Christmas.

Happy New Year!

As it turns out, all of the new pictures I used for this site’s header image were taken by Twyla. Such an ar-teest!

We just returned home from a great holiday in Port Douglas along the coast of Far North Queensland. We flew into Cairns (say “cans”, go figure) and drove north for about thirty minutes along the gorgeous ocean road, Captain Cook Highway. Port Douglas is a quiet beach town with one main drag, a couple of grocery stores, and about two dozen restaurants and cafes.

The best part of the week was playing with Pete in the surf. He already loves the water but the sand and waves were almost too much excitement for him. He was a little timid at first but it wore off quickly. Prying him away from the beach at the end of the day was not a pretty sight.

We spent the better part of a day driving through the Daintree rainforest which is just a short jaunt north of Port Douglas. The drive and the scenery were great but even the short hikes were a challenge for an 18 month-old who loves to sprint and a pregnant woman who would prefer not to walk.The primary reason for coming this far north though, besides escaping the chill and damp of Melbourne, is the Great Barrier Reef. We sailed on a large chartered catamaran and anchored just off the coast of a small corral cay in the reef’s low isles. I went off to prep for my scuba diving adventure while Twyla and Pete took the shuttle boat over to the island.

My first scuba experience was incredible! I touched cartoonish clams big enough to stick an arm in (which I did), swam with sea turtles that glided through the water without a care in the world, and saw the most brilliantly colored fish and coral you can imagine. Only after returning to the boat did I learn about the the two and half meter lemon shark the ship’s photographer saw lurking nearby. And, yes, he did come back with photographic evidence.

On our last full day there we had breakfast with the birds at the Rainforest Habitat, literally. One of these guys was bold enough to help himself to my breakfast sausage and barely budged when I smacked him on his fat, white belly. But the highlight of the sanctuary was, of course, the koalas…

More pictures here…