Kaikoura, New Zealand...

What a unique and magical place! Greg and I went on a whale watching boat and saw 3 Sperm Whales and a pod of Dusky Dolphins. Then we wandered around the coast near the town and found seals, hermit crabs, star fish (like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants), and the cutest little penguin!! I finally got to see one up close in the wild :) Here are some pictures of my adventures.

Animals of New Zealand

We've seen a lot of cool animals so far during our stay here! The bird with the large wing span is called an Albatross. They were flying around our boat when we took a cruise to a place called Doubtful Sound. We have found those seals on the cruise that were relaxing next to the Tasman Sea. Also, we've seen seals on the beach near the town of Dunedin. The funny looking bird on the ground is called a Kea, that liked to follow people around and get on top of cars :) There are more sheep than people in New Zealand, so we visited a sheep and deer farm. We got to watch the sheep being sheared so they can sell their wool. I haven't seen any penguins yet, but I hope I can later!

A hike to the top of Key Summit

We arrived in Te Anau which is right next to the Fiordland.  This is the area where Lord of the Rings was filmed.  It makes sense that movie directors would pick this place because it looks like we are on a different planet! 
Today we took a 2 hour drive to a place called Milford sound.  That was used in Lord of the Rings also.  There were tons of places to park your car and hike around.  We took a 1 and a half hour hike up to a lookout where we had a great view of the mountains!  Here are some pics from our journey!

Skyline Gondala

What a great view!  Greg and I took a gondala ride just outside of Queenstown.  We could see the whole town and surrounding areas.  There was a really fun racetrack that you could take a luge cart down, which is a small cart.  It was so fun, with sharp turns and little drop offs, that we rode down 6 times!

Just flew to Queenstown

We stepped off the plane in the southern town of Queenstown and were surrounded by enormous mountains!  The view from the plane was awesome.  The sun sets early here, at 5 or 6, so I'm looking forward to seeing the sites tomorrow.  I also included a picture of the rugby match we went to.

Auckland

Hey everyone! We are here in Auckland and loving it. The flight was 13 and a half hours and it took forever! It was worth it though. Auckland is a cool city with lots of pretty scenery. We've had a sports-filled weekend, with a soccer match and our first rugby game! Also, the food is really good. We've been eating good fish and something called meat pies. That probably sounds weird :) I have some good pictures from this weekend that I can upload later. I hope all of you are enjoying the summer!

New Zealand... Here we come!

Hey everyone! We are getting ready for another big trip when school is out and we could not be more excited for this one. I've been having so much fun planning this trip and researching all of the interesting places we'll get to see. New Zealand is going to be so beautiful!

The way this trip came about is that a few years ago, we hosted two guys from New Zealand, Matt and Kahn. They both loved Texas and especially the small town experience of Pampa! Since then, they have wanted us to visit them so we can experience their country. We couldn't be more thrilled to get to see them again and to explore the two islands that make up New Zealand!

Here is a world map to show especially my students where all of this is happening. Greg and I will be flying from Texas to Los Angeles, California. From there we will get on a plane straight to Auckland New Zealand.Here is a map of just New Zealand so you can see what towns we will be visiting.


To My Students: I hope all of you have a great summer! During my trip I am going to update this blog and let you know what we are up to. I will also be posting pictures of some of the things we've talked about, like penguins and the scenery of some movies you've seen. Feel free to ask questions on here if you'd like :)