South Pacific 2005
In March and April 2005 we went on a six-week trip to the South Pacific, including 16 days in New Zealand, and a two-week cruise from Tahiti to see a solar eclipse and Pitcairn Island.
Anza-Borrego Desert
The plane left from LAX. The winter of 2004 was particularly rainy in Southern California, which made March in the Anza-Borrego Desert east of San Diego have the most explosive display of wildflowers in living memory. More pictures...
Fiji
We spent four days in Fiji, at the little Beachside Resort near the tourist center of Nadi (which the Indo-Fijians have gotten everyone to pronounce "nan-di"). We took two tours to the interior of the island, seeing a cave one day and a waterfall the next, and spent the last day snorkeling next to a small island. More pictures...
New Zealand
New Zealand is a beautiful little country, with 4 million people and maybe 40 million sheep. We spent most of our time on the South Island, which has dramatic mountain scenery on the West Coast, beautiful shorelines all around, a major wine producing area, and only 1 million people. On the North Island, we visited Wellington, the nice small capital city; Napier, whose downtown is pervasively Art Deco; and the geothermally active area around Rotorua. And we went through the airport in Auckland, where another million people concentrate, helping keep the rest of the country reasonably unpopulated. More pictures...
Rarotonga
We spent a couple days in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. It's a fairly small island that takes about an hour to drive around. More pictures...
Tahiti
We spent a few days exploring the interior of the island of Tahiti, the capital of French Polynesia. More pictures...
The Eclipse Cruise
The official reason for the trip was to see a solar eclipse and Pitcairn Island. The eclipse was total only over water, so we had to go on a cruise to see it. Also, cruise ships rarely visit Pitcairn, so this was a two-in-one opportunity. More pictures...
Desktops
A collection of interesting backgrounds from the trip. More pictures...
