New Zealand- North Island

We drove the ‘Forgotten Highway’ and saw lots of nice green hills and sheep

Mt. Taranaki

I liked the contrast of the smooth white snow and the black rough volcanic rock that we saw on our hike through the mountains at Tongariro National Park. 

In Rotorua, we rafted the Kaituna River, a class 5 with a 20 foot waterfall!  

It was also cool because of our unique setting, there was a sacred sort of feel to this place.  It was a narrow, winding river in a canyon surrounded by ferns, and the water was clear, yet colored with shades of emerald. 

We had so much fun!

This is a slideshow of us going down the waterfall:

We went Zorbing!  We dove head first into a large plastic ball that was filled with a little bit of warm water, and then they pushed the ball down a hill, with us inside of it rolling around and giggling the whole way down.  When we got to the bottom of the hill we had to slide out a small opening, and we came out dripping wet and still giggling.  It was silly fun, and we loved every second of it!  This is a video of the zorb ball rolling down hill.  

Tasmania

We did it! We completed our Australian tour!  It only took us about 3 months :)

We had a great time driving around Tasmania in our campervan taking in the damp, green, sheep filled scenery, stopping at lots of small, pleasant towns and farms.  We went to a dairy farm for some cheese, a berry farm for Devonshire Tea (scones with cream and jam- very delicious), a vineyard for some wine, and we even went to a pub on a farm.  We did some really nice hikes too.  After our hike to a place called Wineglass Bay, we made friends with a wallaby who I think would have jumped in our van and became our pet if we invited her to.  She kept sneaking up closer and closer to us and hung around watching us for about a half hour or so until we left.  Incidentally, a few nights later, we did have a big black possum jump in our van and it did not want to come out. Other marsupials we encountered were the wombat and the tasmanian devil.  We saw the chubby little wombat eating some grass near our campground and it didn't seem to mind us getting up close.  And since the tasmanian devil is endangered, we had little chance of spotting one while out on a hike, so we went to a conservation center to see them.  They make some of the most entertaining growling noises; they are so ferociously adorable.  Overall, it was a great trip around Tasmania.

This is what we toured around in.  I thought it was funny that it had a huge picture of a tasmanian devil on it.

This is what much of our scenery looked like during our drive around Tasmania

We went to a pub on a farm that had beer drinking pigs

That same farm also had ponies, but they weren't beer drinking ponies,  just regular ponies

We hiked to Wineglass Bay  

A wallaby on the beach

a wombat

a tasmanian devil

hiking Cradle Mountain National Park

hiking to the waterfalls at Mount Field National Park

Victoria

We did the Great Ocean Road drive along the south coast of Victoria, and we thought it was very beautiful-  lots of rocky, untouched coastline.  It would have been nice to go for a swim, except it's the middle of winter here.  

We liked Melbourne because it reminded us a bit of Seattle, and we felt so at home in the cool, rainy weather.  We spent some time at the Museum of Melbourne, checked out the University of Melbourne, and enjoyed all the great pubs, cafes, and shops.  

views from the Victoria coast

Melbourne

Sydney

Sydney is a fun city, and we kept ourselves plenty busy walking around seeing everything there.  The famous opera house was our first stop.  We also walked around the Darling Harbor, the markets, the Maritime Museum, and we went for a lovely ferry ride to Manly Beach that had great views of the city.

the harbor bridge

we had nice views from the boat

the opera house