The last island nation we visited in 1999 year was New Zealand, with a stop off in Fiji for a chance to catch up on the time zone differences
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The last island nation we visited in 1999 year was New Zealand, with a stop off in Fiji for a chance to catch up on the time zone differences
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| Fiji was nice, a bit hot and sticky for our tastes, but the scenery was great and the snorkeling was terrific. We stayed at a resort called Namale and it was very nice. We tried Kava, the local drink and watched the people from the local village perform a Meke which is a dance program | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| New Zealand was the main destination and it was wonderful. We spent a month there and toured both the North and South islands. There were three of us; Bob, Joyce and Joyce's cousin Pat. We traveled by charter airplanes and private cars with drivers. We were there in late October and early November. The snow on these mountains was a result of a late snow. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We visited many interesting places. We were surprised to see how beautiful the many coastlines were. We took a cruise along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. The weather was great and the water was a wonderful aqua color. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We spent a night on Milford Sound. We cruised the sound in the evening before diner and then again the next morning. It was wonderful, great weather, Fiordland penguins, Bottlenose dolphins, and a rainbow in the waterfall. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| At the bottom of South Island is another island called Stewart Island. We really enjoyed this excursion. Not many tourists find their way to this island. There were walks along the beach and into the forest. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| One of the special treats was the diversity of bird life, everything from rowdy Kea's, to oversized native pigeons, to colonies of Gannets. This little Blue Penguin was injured and we had to chase a gull so it could find protection in the ocean. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The scenery was diverse as well as beautiful. We did not travel very far and we would be in an entirely different ecosystem. One time we would be in a forest of giant tree ferns, another would be down a tree lined country road like this picture. Of course there were the many sheep farms. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| At the time we were in New Zealand they said they had 40 million sheep. That is down from 80 million that they had a few years back. We think we saw at least 20 million sheep in our travels. They were around each turn in the road. We spent three luxurious nights at Warekauhau, a working sheep ranch when Bob captured this noisy little lamb on film.
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