T - 10 Days

In 10 days we will be in Australia. We have sold our van. Arranged to stay with family friends and visit a friend from Africa while in Perth. Have rented a car for 16 days to drive up the northwest coast. Booked swimming with whale sharks while in Coral Bay and planned much more along the journey. Before we leave we are really excited to stay with the family we were with during the earthquake in Christchurch and wrap up our time in Timaru. 
We look forward to posting pics and having many more travel stories over the next month or so.......
In the meantime, we have highlighted a map showing the approximate route we took around the two islands. We really did cover a lot of ground in the 5 months we were here. New Zealand truly is incredible and definitely worth a trip!

Three weeks until Australia!!!

The title says it all...getting very excited!!!!!!

No LuLu Love!

Something the ladies can appreciate....when packing for this trip I carefully selected lulus in various lengths, one pair of shorts, one pair of capris and one pair of pants, to make up a good portion of my wardrode.  However, I have since realized that lulus truly are a Canadian obsession. People just have no idea what they are missing out on!!!  For example, since being here I have been asked why there is a funny up side down horseshoe on my shorts and I have even been told that I forgot to take the sticker off my pants...that being the lulu emblem on my pant legs.....I guess I am not as stylish as I thought!:)

Australia booked!

Flights to Australia booked! We fly out of New Zealand and into Perth on April 9th!!

What's new

We have been in Timaru for just over a week now. Its been a bit of a roller coaster ride of emotions since the earthquake but we are settling in.

Chad has a job at a bar in town and is volunteering during the day at the Salvation Army helping to sort donations and what not. I am getting used to working in Msk even though its definitely all very new and its hard to go back to placements almost 2 years ago to remember what to do! It's very interesting treating people in a different country....they describe having slight pain as having a "niggle" and usually say things are "average as" and say they are "getting sorted". I spend as much time trying to figure out what they are saying not just what injury they have.

We are pretty excited for this weekend because the family from Christchurch we stayed with are sending their kids here for the weekend while they go to a concert in Queenstown. Conrad, 14 and Cathryn, 13 will be here and we are planning on showing them around exciting Timaru.

Otherwise we are trying to sell our sweet campervan, and are going to book our tickets next week to Perth for around April 10th woohoo!!! Only 5 weeks until Western Australia!!!!