New Zealand has been a refreshing change - the countryside around Auckland reminded me of California. I stayed with Servas hosts when I arrived; a semi-retired couple - former teachers. The wife offered to let me use one of her two cars to travel around the country - not the first time she has done this. But the car needed a clutch job which would take a week so I elected to tour the country with a hop-on hop-off bus company called the Magic Bus. They stop at many of the sights and activities along the way. Unfortunately, the route goes so slow that I won't be able to do a lot of the backpacking I had planned.

I was able to do a couple good day walks. The one day Tongariro Crossing walk across several live volcanoes was pretty good - but definitely not "one of the finest walks in the world".

In the town of Nelson near the Abel Tasman track I stayed in the worst lodging of the entire trip, Paradiso Hostel. They made every effort to put the maximum rooms and beds in a limited amount of space. The dinner they offered was barely edible.

The Abel Tasman track was a nice walk but not spectacular enough to want to backpack it.

When the magic Bus driver dropped us off at a hostel in Queenstown, I and five other riders found that the driver had canceled the reservations he made for us several days before. It was the height of the tourist season and many other hostels were fully booked. Luckily the hostel was able to find rooms for us. The next day I made arrangements for shuttle to and from the start and end of the Routeburn track and then took the Skyline gondola up the hill above the town and hiked around the peaks there .

I just got finished with my one backpacking trip in New Zealand - on the Routeburn Track and it rained all four days except the four hours the sun came outgloriously the morning I approached the summit. If it hadn't been for that, I would have been very disappointed. The trail had huts with bunks, mattresses and gas stoves so I didn't have to carry the tent, sleeping pad, stove and fuel that I had sent from SF - though I have been lugging it on and off the Magic Bus all around New Zealand.

It is no surprise to me that Peter Jackson, the director of the Tolkien trilogy movies, choose his native land, New Zealand, for location shooting. New Zealand is a very beautiful and bizarre country. Snow on ferns and moss covered trees yesterday. Bungy jumping, hang gliding, jet boating, canyoning, rafting, paragliding, parachuting, hang gliding, kayaking , river surfing, swimming with dolphins, cement luges everywhere - its like an active lifestyle grownups playground. I've been saving my money for swimming with dolphins and sea kayaking on the way north (and some dives in Hawaii) - not that it's expensive here. $10 for a dorm bed and $20 for the day's meals.

The Kiwis themselves are very friendly and way laid back. Today, I'm heading back up the south island and then up across the north to Auckland, Waikiki and SF - homeward bound.

While waiting for the morning Magic Bus pickup outside a Wellington youth hostel I had an overwhelming desire to hear U2's I Will Follow. I played it in my head and looked and longed for the trip I would take to the southwest upon my return to the US, when I would take the bulk of my music collection on tape for the road. Later that day, the new bus driver (who's music choices I had been impressed with all moring) put on U2's greatest hits CD. It was real amazing and cool, but unfortunately about a half hour in, just before I Will Follow played, he was asked to turn it down - there were a lot of grey-hairs on the bus that day.

On the way back up the coast of the southern island at the town of Kaikoura , I paid $50 to go out on a boat and hopefully swim with wild dolphins. It took us over an hour, but the other boat we went out with eventually found a pod of about thirty. We could see dolphins swimming around and among the other boat's snorklers as we arrived. As soon as we got in the water they (the dolphins) came over to us and swam in, beside, around and under us. I made eye contact with one three feet away who swam circles around and with me just seconds after getting in. I was so excited that many times I forgot that I was only using snorkle gear and swallowed a lot of the ocean. The tour guides said that the dolphins were not there to entertain us - rather we were there to entertain them and suggested a couple of things to do to interest them, like swimming in circles, diving down and making noises. To the onlookers on the boat I'm sure we looked and sounded pretty funny and it's no wonder the dolphins were interested. At one point, when I began to dive down, three dolphins and I converged on the same spot. It is a wonder that neither one of us collided - we were that close. Eventually though, they did loose interest and swam away.

I had planned staying a couple more days to explore the Coramandel coast northeast of Auckland, but it had become flooded with two days of rain and expected more so I'm leaving for Honolulu tomorrow for 3 or 4 days of scuba diving....and then................home. I will be only home for two weeks though, as I want to do some backpacking, spelunking, hiking, river rafting and mountain biking in the southwest this spring as I will not having a springtime opportunity until my next sabbatical (7 years) if then.