Small House, Big Yard. John O'Neal

they're used for. Watching them sheer sheep was quite an education too. But the BEST part was watching the sheep dogs working the flock. The dogs were absolutely amazing on how they could get the sheep to do exactly what they wanted them to do. And the dogs in turn were guided with whistles and hand signals by the farmers, even though the sheep might be half a mile away.

      From the Bay of Islands we drove south to Rotorua. Rotorua is well-known for geothermal activity. There are a number of geysers, notably the Pohutu geyser at Whakarewarewa, and hot mud pools located in the city, which owe their presence to the Rotorua caldera. Rotorua is nicknamed Sulphur City, because of the aforementioned thermal activity. We can certainly attest to the fact that the sulphur gives off an odor unique to Rotorua that adds to the visitor experience. We never actually got used to it. Rotorua is also a walking town. Even though we had a car we walked to a lot of places.

      http://www.rotoruanz.com/

      As I write this Cindi and I are safe and sound back in our house on wheels that we left in Temecula, CA. We left Auckland at 7:30 p.m. on December 24th and arrived at Los Angeles at 10:30 a.m. on, you guessed it, December 24th. So we had two Christmas Eves.

      That fits nicely with the three Springs we had this year. One in San Diego, one in Alaska, and one in Australia. My allergies got a real workout and I went through a ton of Kleenex.

      The trip was excellent. We recommend both Australia and New Zealand to anyone thinking of going. One of the things we learned is that getting around over there is as easy as getting around in the States. If we go back we will definitely go with no hotel reservations or rental car reservations and just wing it. Everything a tourist needs is readily available locally and can easily be booked locally. It's as easy as moving around the U.S. making reservations as you go.

      Driving a rental car in both countries was a piece of cake. Eventually I got used to looking in the right places for oncoming cars. Actually, I looked in every possible direction all the time. But I never did get used to the turn signal and windshield wiper toggle switches being on the opposite sides of the steering column from what I’m used to. So when I would get in high stress situations, like in a round-about, I would turn on the wipers by mistake. So there we would be... going around the round-about with our windshield wipers going and no turn signal on. I'm sure everyone was looking at us and chuckling. But having a car sure gave us a lot of flexibility.

      My hands, wrists, forearms, and knees have healed up. The face is coming along nicely. I don’t scare little children anymore when they see me.

      I wish we could have stayed another 2 or 3 months, we barely scratched the surface of seeing the two countries. I hope we go back some day.

      But the best part of the trip was still when we went through customs and the immigration officer at LAX said "Welcome home."