The night before we leave. It's weird just being in bed writing this with my completed suitcase to my left and my dogs in bed by my side. This time tomorrow night they'll be going to bed without me and I'll be well on my way on this new adventure. We have two flights: four hours from Chicago to San Francisco and then 13 hours from San Francisco to Auckland, NZ.
My to-do list today was incredibly long, mostly due to my own procrastination. I don't think I honestly accomplished much yesterday but today I got it all done and in a timely fashion, which was nice. Tomorrow I won't have any time to do much of anything since we're leaving at 10 for the airport.
So what's new and what isn't? Well...this time I am not going to have Mark around as my safety net, which is very unsettling but still exciting to see if I can do this without running to him with questions. AJ and I are taking 10 female students, my previous two programs had a mix of male/female so it's going to be the 12 of us girls wandering around NZ and AUS for 33 days. We're hitting a new city this time. I've never been to Christchurch or taken the train in NZ so that will be cool. We're staying in some different hostels due to renovations and one city we're staying in vacation apartments. That'll be a new experience!
For the stuff that isn't new, we're still hitting our usual spots (just swapped Napier for Christchurch). Starting in Auckland for the museum and then heading out to Rotorua the next day. We stop at the Waitomo glow worm caves enroute to Rotorua. In Rotorua we'll go to Mitai (Maori cultural performance and meal) and the Polynesian hot pools. The new adventure is going to the Agrodome. Melanie and Tania went in 2013 and loved it, so we added it to the itinerary for this program. We're also going to visit TePuia like previous programs so it'll be cool to see if it's different at all. Last stop on the north island is Wellington, the nation's capitol for the museum, TePapa.
Once we go to the south island we head to Christchurch for a few days and then take a train and a bus to Franz Josef. Ahhhh Franz Josef. My favorite stop in NZ. We'll check out the glacier and Peter's Pond and then keep on heading south. Queenstown should be interesting this year. These girls are out for an adventure. Bungee jumping, canyon swinging, jet boating, snowboarding, riding the luge. They're going to do it all :) I'm looking forward to getting some delicious Ferg burgers while we're there. After Queenstown we go to Dunedin and check out their museum and go on an Eco Tour to the coast. There we'll see penguins (Yellow Eyed, rarest in the world), seals, and sea lions. We're probably going to pop in to Speights for a tour and a few tastings and check out the Cadbury World tour.
After Dunedin it's flying to Sydney via Auckland. We're going to go see the new Jurassic Park at the world's largest IMAX in Darling Harbor and take photos with the shells at the opera house. I have decided to be a little brave and walk the Sydney Harbor bridge. We'll see if it actually happens :D Then we fly north to Cairns to go visit Tjapukai (Aboriginal cultural performance and meal) and go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. Then on to my favorite Australian spot, Port Douglas.
Port Douglas is another location to hit the reef for some snorkeling but the rainforest adventure days are the best. One day in the Daintree rainforest and a crocodile tour on the Daintree river, the other day learning to spearfish at Cooya beach and how to paint a boomerang with Binna at the Janbel art gallery. Back Country Bliss has the coolest day tours!
Once we leave Port Douglas it's back to Cairns for two days before heading back to the states. I have a feeling a trip to Kuranda to hold a koala will be in our plans. Maybe a last minute trip to the reef. Then we begin the exceptionally lengthy day of July 1st, we leave Australia, fly to NZ to catch a flight back to San Francisco. We'll see the sun rise twice that day (International Date Line) and it's a pretty long day when all is said and done.
I'm excited to go and excited to see everything and watch the students and AJ experience it all. I just don't wanna leave my fur kids but it'll be ok. I'll try to blog daily if I can, but I will definitely keep up with this better than last time :) Since this is my last trip, I might make a photo book of all three trips put together to be my keepsake from all these adventures down under.
Next post will be from New Zealand!!!!!!!!
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