We made it!

We're safe and sore. Our sunburns hurt. We forgot to put on sunscreen before biking the 25 k from the airport to our hostel. Now we are paying for it. On the positive side, we saw a bunch of cows and sheep on the mini volcanoes that dot Auckland's skyline. One tree hill was very tall, though, there wasn't a tree on top, hmmm... Oh, we also met this guy that owns a bike business in Auckland and he told us where to stay, eat, and where to travel; so, we've decided not to head north to Cape Reinga and the Bay of Islands (this would have taken us 3 weeks of constant biking) and, instead, to stay closer to Auckland and ferry out to islands for day trips, including a bird sanctuary, a really brand new volcanic island (it is only 700 years old, the Maori sing songs about its birth), and Waiheke Island, then, we will catch a ferry to the Coromandel Peninsula and hopefully find a place to WWOOF and camp. Well, time to catch some shut-eye to get ready for an exciting day of volcanoes!

We leave in 4 days!

I'm just testing this thing out... feel free to follow our trip through New Zealand. We'll start in Auckland on Wednesday; it is pretty outrageous with that whole international date line thing: we leave on Monday but don't get in until 6 am on Wednesday morning. The weather is calling for 2 degrees warmer than Seattle! Anyway, this is the place to look for occasional updates from us as we embark on our slightly crazy adventure.