Wednesday, August 15, 2001

   Hello everyone!

 Just another form letter telling you about our progress.  We are now just north of Auckland looking for a house to rent.  But so much has happened in one week, let me start off from last Wednesday.

 Last Wednesday we spent the night in Glenelg (sorry for the error on previous emails—I thought it was called Bridgeport)—which is a suburb of Adelaide.  We spent a glorious night in a hotel on the beach.  It was gorgeous.  We watched the Australian surfers.  They use thick long kneeboards.  It was interesting. 

 Thursday we flew to Melbourne, Australia.  We had heard it was a large, ugly, smoggy city.  Just the opposite.  It was bright and sunny and we really enjoyed exploring it all day on Friday.  We went to the Melbourne Museum and learned about the Aborigine people.  We also were quite impressed with all the beautiful fountains and water shows—they are everywhere.  Our hotel room overlooked the Yarra River and there was a fire show on the hour from these huge columns that were also water fountains.  Quite spectacular. Melbourne has great public transportation—we had fun on their electric trams.

 Saturday we flew to New Zealand.  Another flight for the kids; they did so well again.  We had to wake the kids at 5:30 am to get out of the hotel and be on our plane by 9:30am.  I thought, oh know………tired, cranky kids for three hours on a plane.  But no problems.  But we could do without the emergency flight system explained to us again.  This time the flight attendant was right next to our seat pointing out the emergency exits, etc.  Corbin, of course, had to ask the attendant where exactly the life jacket was stored?  She made a big deal of showing him they are stored under his seat.  So guess where he spent most of the flight—yes, under his seat watching his life jacket! 

 We arrived in New Zealand Saturday afternoon to gray skies but beautiful scenery.  We got through customs etc. fine, rented a car, and we were out in the parking lot when the skies open up and dumped on us.  I had never, ever seen rain like this.  I had the kids jump in the car and Robin and I starting throwing the luggage in the van as fast as we could.  We were laughing so hard it was hard to stay focused.  Once again the luggage killed us—too many bags!!   It took us maybe 4 minutes to get out of the rain, but we looked like we had jumped in a pool with our clothes on.  We were absolutely dripping wet.  Most of the clothes in our luggage were wet too.  So… major laundry for the next day or so.  We went straight to our hotel and into a warm bathtub. 

The next few days were actually sunny and warm at times, but then the weather turns quickly and it will start to rain.  Today it is very cold and we are staying mostly inside or in the car.  We have been looking for a home to rent.  We have seen some gorgeous homes with fantastic views, but nothing has worked out yet.  The home we are interested in has an open house (the owners are trying to sell it too) this weekend.  If no offer is made, we can rent the house next week.  The house is perfect, except it is off a really busy road.  Corbin will not be allowed to play out in front --ever.  There is a fenced little yard where he can play.  The house is a few blocks from the grocery store and the beach.  Cailyn and I already have our route figured out on where we will be walking for exercise in the morning.  Forget my great ideas for cycling here with the kids—these are narrow streets with no bike paths.  Too dangerous for bikes.  We will just have to walk.  So we hope we have a house to move into next week.

 Well, we explored the north shore today and saw a lot of green hills and farms with cows and sheep.  The land looks much different here than Australia.  Large ferns and tropical plants in the wild areas, and large green rolling hills on the farms.  We love the beach areas.  Clear blue water with no surf.  Corbin has to get wet every time we are near the water.  The people are very friendly and helpful.  We are learning so much.  A lot of South Africans have moved to this area—there are over 30,000 here. 

 Tomorrow is a new adventure—we need to move out of this hotel.  This hotel has no available rooms until next week, so we have decided to travel a bit.  A big rugby game is being played this weekend and this place will be busy for a couple of days.  I will stay in touch………..

 Love to hear from all of you too.

 Take care,

 Catherine and family