Wendy: Sniff, sniff, goodbye fun country!! We've had such a good time traveling in New Zealand, and it's hard to end this stage of the journey. We started today by dropping off our kayaks at a shipping company. For $60 US dollars each, the boats will be put on a ship in Auckland, cross the oceans to the US, and magically show up at a depot in Oakland. We dropped the boats off at the warehouse, only to watch them put in a pile of other stuff to be shipped, and then to be handed a piece of paper and told they'll get there in 3-4 weeks. They have no stickers with our names on them, or any marking about where they are going, but supposedly the piece of paper will assure they get where they are going. We nervously said goodbye to the boats, and hope we see them again someday.
Next on the agenda was packing our bags, and then a goodbye dinner with Steve. Who would have guessed we could travel with a casual friend for 9 weeks and still be friends? We still actually like each other! A brief hug goodbye, and our friend Steve is now but a part of our New Zealand experience. Thank goodness we'll see him again in a few months on the Grand Canyon trip, so the goodbye was more like a "see you soon."
Next stop, flight from Auckland to Santiago, Chile. From Santiago we're off to Puerto Montt, and on to the tent sites of the Futalafu. Big water boating in Chile here we come!! We'll be out of email and computer contact for the next few weeks, but will catch up again when we return to the US for ski season.