The first 3 weeks

George here-- while I eagerly await for Laura and the boys to get to New Zealand, I'll fill you in on a little bit of what I've been up to in my 3 weeks here.  I served as co-director for a Furman University group's trip to New Zealand to visit schools in Auckland, Dunedin, and Queenstown.  Here is the blog that students wrote as we went along: http://blogs.furman.edu/edu265may2012/

While I had been to all three places before, it was good to spend significant time with teachers and students and have some enjoyable side trips along the way.  The Otago Peninsula and Milford Sound (see picture above) were two of my favorites.

Wednesday, I left the group and drove to Christchurch (first left side of the road driving in 20 years) to begin my work here to look at schools' use of technology post-earthquake.  No shakes yet, and I hope it stays that way. 

More to come...

Itinerary

So here is a tentative itinerary. It will give you a rough idea of where we'll be staying each night. I say tentative, because if we don't feel like doing something, we won't; or if the weather isn't cooperating, or we just need a lazy day to do laundry- it might change the schedule. But more or less, this will give you an idea of our travels. It will just be Laura and the Boys on the North Island June 3-8; George will be busy at work in Christchurch. From the 11-18, we'll be joined by our friends the Henry family, and from the 18-28, we'll be based in Christchurch, but likely to take day trips or weekend jaunts while George finishes up his study portion of the trip.

Sunday, June 3 arrive in Auckland

M4 Auckland to Coramandel Pennisula

T5 Hahei/Cathedral Cove

W6 Tauranga/Bay of Plenty

T7 Rotarua- Mitai Village

F8 Rotarua- flight to Christchurch

S9 Christchurch

S10 Christchurch

M11 leave by RV to Queenstown

T12 Queenstown

W13 Franz Josef Glacier

T14 Greymouth

F15 Nelson

S16 Blenheim

S17 Kaikaoura

M18 Return to Christchurch

T19 Chch

W20 Chch

T21 Akaroa

F22 Chch

S23  Chch

S24 Mt. Hutt skiing

M25 Chch

T26 Hamner Springs/Tranzalpine

W27 Chch

T28 leave Christchurch train to Picton, ferry  to Wellington

F29 Wellington

S30 Wellington to Waitomo

S July 1 Waitomo

M2 Matamata

T3 Auckland P beach

W4 flight from Auckland to LA, LA to CLT

T5 Arrive in CLT

Packing

Well, of course before you go on a trip, you have to pack and prepare. So, one of the things has been to get a blog ready- so here it is! Check that off my to-do list. That only leaves about 451 things to do. Meanwhile the boys are mostly interested in watching tv or playing video games. I guess they're doing the equivalent of carb loading by bears before hibernation- they instinctively know that they will be doing without those things (for the most part) for a month, so they're gorging themselves now! Anyway- this is just meant to be a tester so I can send everyone the link. As we get going though, we hope to get the boys posting their experiences of Aotearoa (that's Maori for 'the land of the long white cloud' aka New Zealand).