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Sorry for the title, but after almost a week of riding around in a campervan, I seem to have a steady stream of Camper Van Beethoven lyrics running through my head. Yesterday we went out for a cruise around the Bay of Islands, which, as Tom will soon tell you, will probably go down as one of the highlights of his life. It has been New Zealand’s coldest winter in 35 years, so what is my fearless husband’s response? “Sounds like a perfect time to swim with the dolphins.” Dax, McKane, and I were tempted to join in the arctic fun, but our body mass indexes simply wouldn’t allow it. A guy we met the day before told us jumping into the frigid Pacific was a “heartstopper,” but that it wasn’t so bad once you got going. We thought he was crazy.

Despite the cold, Tom was happy that our sleek and speedy yellow boat, which normally holds 120, carried only 10 (of which we were 6). When we got to the site where the swimming was to take place, there were other vessels plying the waters, but overall few swimmers crazy enough to brave the cold for a chance to join Flipper in his native habitat. (Actually the dolphins Tom buddied up to were Spot and Psycho, the latter perhaps being related to an ill-intentioned creature our Uncle Todd once encountered while surfing.)

I’ll let Tom share his impressions and video with you in the next post. The most bizarre part of the whole experience for us as spectators were the demon seagulls that dive bombed him from above. I guess when he plummeted to the bottom they thought he was after their food.

The dolphins are the dark shadow just above Tom’s head on the second picture. He’s filming them with his nifty little water camera.

Though it was chilly, like most New Zealand scenery, the Bay of Islands did not disappoint. Our boat maneuvered around countless verdant islands which could have been sculpted from the machetes of the demigods of Maori legend. We slid through the Hole in the Rock, gazed at the Lady in the Rock, and peered into caves fit for Johnny Depp and his cohorts, but our greatest surprise came when we rounded the bend and ran into these characters. They’re a gang of teenager ne’er-do-wells relegated to hanging by themselves until they mature sufficiently to win wives.

Another epic day in our nascent adventure!

Technorati Tags: Bay of Islands, Dolphins, Family Travel, New Zealand, puppy, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW

We started our second full day in New Zealand much like the first. We parted the curtains in the back of the campervan to see what nature had in store for us. We weren’t sure what to expect from the countryside since we pulled into the RV park after dark. Here’s what we saw:

The setting seemed almost mystical as a shroud of mist enveloped the rolling hillside and this lone cow greeted us. We’re in Lord of the Rings country, Hobbiton not Mordor, and everything is simply beautiful. We camped in Matakohe because we wanted to visit the Kauri Museum, a facility dedicated to documenting the European settlement of the Northland through the history of the Kauri tree, the second largest in the world. We marveled at the giant redwoods (the largest) in Northern California in 2001, so we’re no strangers to big fauna. I had read that the museum was better than a visit to the forest but it was tough to make sense of the displays without having seen the trees themselves. Like the giant sequoias, the immense Kauri were irresistible to ship- and homebuilders, cabinetmakers, and other woodmongers. The deforestation of the past two centuries was so bad that a few protected forests are all that remains in New Zealand. We’ll be sure to pass through it on our way back down to Auckland.

Our tour through the museum highlighted the dynamic that will most certainly characterize our future visits. Tom and I take turns chasing the little two, trying to find points of interest for them and keeping them from upending any displays. (We’re no strangers to this practice. Below is a picture of me admonishing McKane in 2000 to stop swinging his arms around the world famous paintings in Madrid’s Prado Museum.) Much more restrained these days, McKane assumes a modest pace, reading about things he finds interesting and paying special attention to visual displays. Yesterday he noticed an impressive carving of a tuatara, a lizard once thought extinct which he had learned about in science class last year. He was also particularly interested in the Kauri gum display housed in the basement of the museum. Gum, like sap, oozes from wounds to the trees and once was harvested for used in paints, varnishes, and linoleum flooring.

Dax, our sage, proceeds slowly, reading every description and explanation, and then briefs us after he’s done so we find out what we missed. Someday we’ll sign him up for Jeopardy since he never seems to lose a fact once he’s entered it into his databank.

Thankfully the staff were gracious and undaunted by the Clampetts arrival. Even their friendliness could not compensate, however, for the really creepy appearance of the museum’s mannequins. Each wore a nametag and some sort of menacing gaze. We were sure that if he weren’t made out of wax ol’ Steve here would have risen from his stool to harm sweaty Bob in some way.

Maybe he’s just mad that most of the Kauri trees are gone.

Technorati Tags: Family Travel, Hobbiton, Kauri trees, Museums, New Zealand, Round the World, Round-the-world, RTW