Home at last

Just touched down in LA, and glad to be home, as we are anxious to see the family and friends.

Sat next to Patrick McEnroe and Martina Navratolova on the flight as they were returning to NY from Melbourne and the Australian Open.

Thanks for following us, and for being our inspiration. kEEP AN EYE ON THE BLOG AS PERIODICALLY WE WILL POST MORE VIDEOS AND PICTURES AS WE GET THEM.

TTFN, BRAD, ERIC AND jOHN

bye bye down under.....

Sharing the Sydney First Class lounge with Nicole Kidman, and Russel Crowe, watching the 2nd half of the Super bowl, and Andy Roddick just walked in, fresh off his beat down to Federer in the Australian Open, so we'll try to get a picture before we leave.........
Camera cards are full so not many new pictures of the last couple of days so we'll give you some shots of the Milford March. More bridges and waterfalls than I have ever seen.
See you tomorrow!!!

Hey sports fans!!

Happy Super Bowl Day!! Watching the big game in Sydney today, Monday, and thinking of you all. Reminiscing about the big fun we had and got more pictures from our buds - Josh and Pat from NZ Eco rafting. Check 'em out. They didn't pay $6M for that Super Bowl Sunday spot like some companies are doing, just made sure we had a good time, and we are repaying the favor. Cheers! Here's their link. We are already on it. Almost famous, baby...

http://ecorafting.co.nz/

Parting is such sweet sorrow

From here on out, its planes, trains and automobiles, until we see you again. More photo fun. see you soon

Spanning the globe for your entertainment...

So many photos, so little time left. Last day together and last day in NZ. We need a vacation to unwind from our vacation. Took it easy today at the beach where the temperature was only 30.........celsius.

We were going to try to do this new sport called "Sky dive bubble wrap jump", but could find no vendors still open. Fishing and/or sailing were going to happen as well but we had trouble finding outfitters last minute that could take us so we just drove around the coast. Need to go out and spend all of the New Zealand $$ left in our wallets. Might be fun

Odds n ends

Drove from the West coast to Christchurch for our last couple of nights in "magicland".

Just to prove that New Zealand isn't perfect and so you don't feel too much like we're rubbing it in.......... There are a couple of things about here that suck - Sand flys - merciless little carnivores, that find you if standing still for more than 3.5 minutes. Probably why everyone does stuff on a constant basis here. That's about it. Oh yeah, they have most of their sinks without merged hot/cold faucets. Total bummmer........:) One last thing: 2 lane bridges are not invented yet, making every drive a game of "cat n mouse adrenaline challenge". They must have some reason for doing this, but we haven't figured it out yet.

Traveler tips:

1) when stopping to heckle the sheep and take their picture, do not, I mean do not! touch the electric fence

2) when you can get a nice rack, you should always order a nice rack! Of lamb......

3) cows pose for pictures, sheep run scared..not sure what that means

4) raft guides are not afraid to try to kill you for a good picture. This last one shows that Josh knew exactly what he was doing when we went exploding through the rapid shown in the photos below.

sweet as . . . . .

There's a saying the Kiwi's on the Western Coast, in Glacier Country seem to say rather frequently, which we have found ourselves muttering incessantly as we continue to be blown away by the time we are having engaging in all of our mundane tourist activities. "Sweet As"......As in, when Country fell backwards out of the raft as Graning and Shinn watched him go, that was "Sweet As", or the class 5 rapid, called: "Grand Finale", on the Whataroa River, that launched all of us upside down and dumped us into the water like a yard sale, was "sweet as". The raft guide that missed our appointment yesterday because of a "car accident", miraculously was cured after supposedly hitting a cow. We were a little bummed when we heard we had to go on a different river and thought that we might be in for a "wimpy day". Again, we underestimated the WATERRRRR. "The river does, what the river wants...". These pictures show that our last day of adrenaline searching did not disappoint. Leaving for Christchurch in the morning, glad we are still alive and sitting here talking about that day.