Sheepworld

Where are we now? Well, Tigger is in Quarantine jail in Sydney - 30 days in solitary. On December 18th he'll become an honorary Australian citizen.

We visited him in Sydney a couple of days after we shipped him off by air - he seemed to be settled in fine. Ginger calls Naomi, his jailer, every week.

Once Tigger was locked up in the slammer, we went on vacation to New Zealand! Although we decided not to brave the Tasman Sea and temperate latitudes to bring Dos Gatos to New Zealand, we still wanted to see the country.

Our first week was spent in a rented camper touring the Northlands that run northwest from Auckland. We saw giant Kauri trees, a variety of New Zealand wildlife - including glowworms in a cave that trap mosquitoes - and Sheepworld.

Sheepworld is a sheep-themed attraction including a sheep-oriented show, sheep-derived gifts, and sheep. The sheep show began with a sheepdog demonstration, followed by audience-involvement sheep sorting (Martin got 100% for 18 perfectly sorted sheep), followed by shearing of a sheep volunteer. It sounds funny but actually Sheepworld was a nice stop.

After our camper week, we took the Overlander train from Auckland to Wellington and, after a brief stopover, the ferry to the South Island and the TranzCoastal train to Christchurch.

Tomorrow we pick up another camper and tour the South Island for two weeks. On the list are Fiordland, Franz Josef Glacier, Albatross nesting, and penguins.

We fly back to Sydney on December 17th to pick up Tigger when he's parolled.

More photos are here.