http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog Pictures from down under... Mon, 15 Jan 2007 13:37:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Well this is my record of my trip down under and back. This is actually my last post, I put all of the pictures in backwards so they could be viewed sequentially as we saw them on the trip. My companion on the trip was my brother Kyle who had ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=60 Monday, May 21st, Early Morning While showing Kyle my new camera I took a couple of pictures from the car as we drove south from Auckland, shortly after my arrival in the country. The sun wasn't even up when we hit the road. You can see some of the southern outskirts ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=59 Monday, May 21st, Morning Our first stop south of Auckland was in Matamata, about an hour or so south of Auckland. This was where we took the tour of the Hobbiton movie set from the Lord of the Rings films. This was also where we ate at a little deli/shop for ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=58 Monday, May 21st, Late Morning Our first real destination in New Zealand, Hobbiton was well worth the time. Apparently while out looking for a location to shoot this part of the films the crew was flying over some of the farmland and got a glimpse of this farm. Once they had ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=57 After leaving Matamata and heading south again we saw some great views from the road. This was a lake that we saw while driving. The road and lake. http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=56 Monday, May 21st, Afternoon We drove through one of the national parks on our way south. The park is named Tongariro National Park and is a World Heritage site. The pictures are of the highest peak on the north island, Mount Ruapheu. We knew that we were near the mountain for ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=55 Monday, May 21st, Afternoon While driving south towards Wellington we stopped to stretch our legs at a little pulloff and found a trail from the pulloff that led us to some great views of this gorge that was near the road. Here is the gorge from along the trail A little ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=54 Monday, May 21st, Evening After we got into Wellington we get a room in the YHA hostel there and took a walk around the city. It was a pretty neat city. We ended up grabbing some fish and chips for dinner and wandering around for a while. This was the theater ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=53 Tuesday, May 22rd, Early Early Morning We got up pretty early on tuesday to go out to the southern part of Wellington to see the Red Rocks and a seal colony. It was about a 5 kilometer walk out and back, but we got there really early and we were the ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=52 Tuesday, May 22rd, Late Morning After heading back to downtown Wellington we decided to drive around a bit and go up to Mt Victoria, a very large hill right next to downtown. The views from the crest of the hill allow you to see the entire city, and there are numerous ... http://www.kevinwanke.com/blog/?p=51