I just paused to see what Elijah was ripping out of a notebook, and discovered it was our 2009 Australia and New Zealand itinerary. I decided I would duplicate it somewhere a little less destructible. I have gazillions of photos of the trip in my Picasaweb album, so maybe I’ll toss a few of those in. Brian’s former company awarded him with two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, and they were about to expire. Additionally, we were four months away from the birth of our third son and decided that “now was the time!”  We flew into Sydney and explored a bit before continuing to Tasmania and renting a car for a whirlwind tour. After that, we did another quick zip through parts of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Obviously, we did nothing too adventurous, but it was a trip, in true Brian and Amy style, that we’ll never forget.

Here are some of the way points.

Sydney:

• Stayed in Park Regis City Center

  

• Cook Phillip Park
• St. Mary’s Cathedral
• Australian Monument to the Irish Famine at Hyde Park
• Royal Botanical Gardens
• Sydney Opera House
• Dawes Point Park
• Flight from Sydney International Airport to Hobart International airport

Tasmania:

• Took rental car past Liawenee, through Breona and Liffey Forest to Deloraine
• West Kentish
• Stayed at Cradle Mountain Lodge
• Cradle Mountain National Park
• Pencil Point Falls and Rain Forest Walk
• Tullah

  

• Rosebery
• Zeehan
• Strahan, touched Indian Ocean
• Queenstown
• Hobart, Flight to Auckland

New Zealand:

Waitakere Ranges National Park

• Kare Kare Beach
• Waitomo, glow worm caves

• Rotorua, Stayed at Koura Lodge
• Waiotapu
• Tongariro National Park to see Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro volcanic mountains

  

• Whakapenui Stream
• Wellington
• Interislander Ferry to Picton
• Kaikoura
• Christchurch and nearby Gore Bay

Here are some map-based visuals of the route.  The Google maps integration was very clumsy, so it turned the routes into a bunch of points.
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