Wednesday, March 29, 2000 12:19 AM
Subject:    RTWW2K Update #2 from New Zealand

Goo'day mates,
We've been in New Zealand for about 5 weeks now, having extended our stay
here by 10 days  since we've enjoyed it so much.  Even at that, we're going
to be very sad to leave.  It has been an extremely busy month and the time
has flown.  We've managed to spend 5 weeks in the north island, we'll save
the more rugged, natural south island for a future trip.

Overall, New Zealand has been a very comfortable place to travel.  We rented
a car for the duration, and stayed in a combination of B&B's, "baches"
(vacation homes), SERVAS hosts, and a campground. Great lodging has been
very easy to find.  There are many Kiwi and foreign travelers.  Every Kiwi
we have met has travelled extensively at some point in their life.
When we last wrote we were at Cooper's Beach at the very far north end of
the North island.  We ended up staying there for a full two weeks because of
the wonderful people, weather and beaches.  We were on the beach a couple of
times each day and ended up being out on the water in kayaks and a little
rowboat several times for some exciting fishing.  We had heaps of fun
catching a fish called kahawai, excellent fighters (similar to salmon in
size and fighting) on light tackle and so plentiful that you couldn't help
but catch one every time you threw your line in.  Both Jessica and Nathan
each got to help pull one in too.

Nathan celebrated his third birthday there.  It was quite a fun party with
the grandson of the people that owned the house in which we stayed and the
four children who lived next door.   He received lots of little gifts
throughout the morning and the rest at lunch.  His favorites were the
matchbox helicopter, bulldozer and sundry other vehicles which Jessica gave
to him.  All throughout the day he kept saying, "Can I have my birthday
yet?" which meant, "Can we have pinata and cake?"  In the future I think
we'll just have the cake and pinata at 8:00 a.m. and save everyone some
frustration rather than waiting until after dinner.  Looks like the age of
three is going to be a very interesting year - Nathan has a great vocabulary
now, and that means that the new improved tantrums come complete with lots
more words to accompany the screams.  One of his favorites comes out as
"badgummit" which is a mispronunciation of my (Bonnie's) strongest
expeletive "dadgummit". It is one of the few words that I haven't really
worked to correct because it really sounds cute coming from him and who
knows what dadgummit really means anyway!

In Cooper's Beach we enjoyed spending time with our next door neighbors, Dr.
Neil Benson (GP for Cooper's Beach) and Helen his wife - they're Canadians
from Victoria who have chosen to move here because it is a great place to
raise a family.  We learned quite a lot about N.Z. from them.  We met Neil
first when he lanced a boil on Nathan's bum (behind or tusch to you Pakehas)
which was one of the low points of the trip for Nathan.  Then we were
surprised when the doctor ended up being our neighbor.  It's a small
community.  Their youngest child, Pippa, is just a bit older than Jessica
and all four kids are delightful.  The Bensons were very generous to lend us
their kayaks and then to give us good lessons on the proper way to fillet a
kahawai.

We've done so much sightseeing in the last month that this e-mail would
probably fill all your remaining memory to download, so I'll try to be brief
about some of the best things we've done.

Between Cooper's Beach and Auckland we went to a kauri forest and a kauri
museum in Matakohe.  Kauris are awesome trees that were unfortunately almost
logged to extinction because they are so tall, wide and perfectly strait and
they make beautiful boats, homes, etc.  Now that living trees can no longer
be cut (with a few rare exceptions), people are actually digging them out of
swamps!  The logs which fell 30,000 - 50,000 years ago are being used to
make the most beautiful furniture, bowls and other treasures.  It is the
oldest workable wood in the world.  There was a huge industry here digging
up the kauri gum which was used in varnishes and polishes and for carving
very pretty necklaces and other trinkets.  We saw the biggest remaining tree
in N.Z. called "Tane Mahuta" which is Maori for "Lord of the Forest".  It is
about 1200 years old and 170 feet high.  Apparently it is only about half
the diameter of some that were previously logged!  The museum alone is
almost reason enough to come to New Zealand.  It has a full scale model of a
saw mill, a huge slab cut from the full length of a tree, the most
incredible collection of kauri gum, and a six room - full scale model of
what a nice home in N.Z. looked like in the early 1900's, complete with
beautifully dressed mannequins.   Jessica was really fascinated by the model
home.

We stayed with a very nice SERVAS family, Bill and Irene Williamson, for the
first two nights in Auckland.  They had two teenage kids who were great with
our two, allowing them to play with their pet mice and "heaps" of matchbox
toys.  They took us to see our first cricket match and explained the rules
of what looks to be quite a boring game - not really surprised it hasn't
caught on in the States.

After watching cricket for a while, Bonnie got to go to a real estate
auction, which is a common way of selling residential real estate here.
I've heard mixed opinions as to their effectiveness, some saying it's a way
for agents to price a house rather than doing competitive market analysis
and others saying homes sell quite well that way.  There were only three
bidders at the auction and the reserve price wasn't met, but the highest
bidder won the right to negotiate first with the sellers.  The marketing of
homes really isn't very efficient, with very few homes being listed by what
we call a multiple system, so most agents are competing for the listings and
they don't really seem to have much incentive to sell any homes that aren't
their own listings.  This makes it kind of tough on the buyers to see
everything that is available, and the sellers really don't seem to get as
many potential buyers as they could if there was a healthy multiple listing
system.

It has been said that everything that happens in California happens here 10
years later - for better or worse.   It really seems to be a true statement
in many cases.

Unfortunately Bonnie had to have a crown put on a tooth.  The work was done
very well and most professionally, but there was a noticeable lack of some
of the more advanced tools and techniques used in the States.  In general,
people here are not litigious, so some of the more extreme methods that have
been adopted in the States to avoid malpractice lawsuits don't seem to be
necessary.   On the other hand we were reading that because of the
semi-socialistic health care, that you might have to wait six or more months
for a necessary operation.  We thank God that our godson, Christian Decker,
was in the U.S. when he needed a liver transplant.  He is still doing
amazingly well, and thanks for all your prayers.  There have been a few
scares, but God has been faithful and Christian is a very fortunate young
man to have had such immediate medical care.

An area in which Kiwis seem to be advanced is in their city planning for
parks and recreation areas.  They have the MOST amazing parks and "domains".
Auckland is built around more than 50 extinct volcanic cones and many of
them were used as pas.  A pa was a fortified Maori village (Maoris being
N.Z.'s indigenous people).  These huge hills were terraced and the warriors
lived at the bottom to protect against invasions (which were fairly common.)
Now many of them have been turned into park areas with two large ones, Mt.
Eden and One Tree Hill, being our favorites for walks and views of the
entire Auckland area.  All over town there are huge play areas for kids and
it seems like we went to every one!  In our area of Washington,  King County
would do very well to take a look at how well N.Z. maintains their parks and
do some imitating (especially Lake Sammamish State Park!)

They also do things like offer dental care for all school aged kids (through
high school) at the schools, or bus the kids to a location to have their
teeth checked and cleaned twice a year.

When Bonnie went in for her crown she also got to see a "lumps and bumps"
doctor in the same clinic as the dentist, who checked all her moles and a
depigmented area (with a clean bill of health) and gave good advice on what
things to look for.  Because of the unusually high rate of skin cancer this
service is offered free to anyone.  Evidently the ozone hole is quite
serious in this part of the world and skin cancer is, quite appropriately, a
huge concern.

All these things come at a price though and taxes are quite high.  The
highest tax bracket is 39% for those making $60,000 NZ (about $30K US) and
the GST, a tax on all purchases, is just over 12%.  The "rates" or property
taxes are quite high as well.  The tax subsidised services makes it a pretty
good place to live if you are unemployed or in the low income bracket. It
also may be part of the reason that a high unemployment rate persists in
quite a booming economy.

Overall though, they seem to do a fine job at most everything, especially
considering the population of only about 3.7 million people.  They
definitely do yachting well, as could be seen by their clean sweep in the
America's Cup yachting race.  They handily beat the Italian team, Prada, 5-0
(sorry Stefano!) and have said they intend to keep the "Auld Mug" for at
least 25 years.

We toured the America's Cup Village area after all the hubbub had cleared
and took a water taxi around all the incredible super yachts.  It is
supposed to be the biggest collection of the world's finest yachts.  They
were here to watch the races and have stayed for the Olympics coming up in
September in Sydney.

We spent almost two weeks in Rotorua, kind of a cross between Yellowstone
National Park and Lake Tahoe.  There is significant geothermal activity in
the area, and is one of three areas in the world where you can see geysers
(Yellowstone and Greenland being the others). There are many hotels here
because it is a very popular tourist destination for the kiwis as well as
international travellers.  Most hotels have hot pools (naturally heated).
One public spa called the Polynesian Resort has some lovely pools
overlooking Lake Rotorua that are very much worth the visit.  We managed to
find a sitter for the kids and spend one blissful evening there.

There is so much to do in Rotorua.  Among many other things, we swam at the
confluence of a hot and cold stream, went horseback riding through some
amazingly beautiful country, and went to a Maori Village for a hangi
(traditional delicious Maori feast cooked in a pit filled with hot stones)
and song and dance performance.

The kids seem to be soaking up so much on this trip and it is really fun and
amazing sometimes to hear their questions about other cultures.   We're
never quite certain just what they see from their point of views either.
Nathan watched the performance in rapt attention and as he watched them
dancing he said, "Don't Maori people have feet?" so I had to hold him up a
bit to see over the audiences head to reassure him that these warriors had
feet too.  Both kids will probably always remember the warriors sticking out
their tongues down to their chins during their performance (they've been
practicing it a lot since).  We didn't actually explain to them that that
was what the warriors did when they were signalling that they thought the
person they were about to eat looked like they would taste good.  We didn't
think Jessica and Nathan were quite ready to hear about cannibalism.

In the 1800's N.Z. imported California rainbow trout, and like the success
they have had in growing sheep, they now grow trout to enormous mouth
watering sizes in the nearby lakes and streams.  We stayed for 3 nights in a
wonderful place called Valley Fishing Lodge  (a B&B out in the country which
we found late in the trip or we might have been there the entire time).  Ky
& Bonnie  took some quick classes in fly fishing from the woman owner and
her daughter (a bit unusual in such a male dominated sport but very nice!)
Ky managed to land a couple of nice rainbows on his first go that tasted
yummy.  Bonnie got skunked, but she's hooked on flyfishing now and is eager
for more tries.

We managed to watch the implosion of the Kingdome in Seattle on the internet
at a café that had a new high speed connection.  It was fun to watch but
we'll miss the Kingdome!
We're off to Brisbane, Australia on March 31st.  We'll be staying with a
SERVAS family for at least 2 days, then we're thinking to rent a furnished
flat for about a month.  What we actually do, of course, will not be known
until after it is done!

So much for trying to be brief, but that's all for now, folks!
Ky, Bonnie, Jessica, and Nathan Coffey