Departure Eve

[Scott] It's Tuesday night and we are all packed and ready for the big journey. These last few days have been helter skelter with all of the final preparations. We will be getting up tomorrow at 5 am and heading to DIA to catch our flight to LA. We will be staying in Hollywood for the next two nights, before we catch our flight out of LAX for New Zealand Thursday night at 8pm. I feel like a load is off my back now that the suitcases are packed, and I'm excited and anxious for the journey to begin. We will be spending two weeks in New Zealand and two weeks in Australia. We have all our flights booked, and about half of the nights we know where we'll be sleeping which will leave us plenty of time for some spontaneous adventuring.

Our rough schedule:
Feb 8-10 Los Angeles exploring the coast and seeing Hollywood
Feb 10 Catch 8pm flight from LAX to Auckland, New Zealand
Feb 12 Arrive in Auckland at 6am - loooong flight plus lose a day across the intl dateline
Feb 12-13 Staying in the heart of the city of Auckland (New Zealand's largest city)
Feb 14-16 Exploring more of New Zealand's North Island
Feb16 Fly from Rotorua (North Island) to Christ Church (South Island)
Feb17-25 Renting an RV to explore the scenic South Island for a whole week
Feb 25 Fly back to Auckland
Feb 26 Fly to Sydney, Australia (southeast coast)
Feb 26-28 Take in as much of Sydney as we can in three nights
Mar 1 Fly to Melbourne (southern coast)
Mar 1-4 Explore Melbourne and surroundings, including the Great Ocean Drive
Mar 5 Fly to Brisbane (middle of the east coast)
Mar 5-6 Working our way up the coast to Gladstone, hopefully visiting a rainforest area
Mar 7 Take a catamaran from Gladstone to Heron Island (www.heronisland.com)
Mar 7-11 Crown jewel of our trip: 4 nights on Heron Island right on the Great Barrier Reef
Mar 11 Drive from Gladstone to Brisbane
Mar 12 Fly from Brisbane to Sydney to LA to Denver
(Don't even want to know how long that journey back will take!)