Today we headed back to LA.    I'm happy that we don't have to travel anymore mountain roads.   Check out the huge cactus

Today was a trip to Jerome Arizona.   The most scariest mountain road yet!!  The highest elevation we reached was 7000 feet.  These pictures do not do it justice .

The  grand canyon was awesome.   We certainly could have spent a few days there and in the area.   Well worth the drive

We drove from LA  to Williams Arizona
When we left LA it was a little cool and windy.  But warming up.  We detoured to Palm springs to have a look.  There it was very warm a beautiful day.  As we continued on we went up in elevation and the temperature dropped .  By the time we stopped for the night it is below freezing and there is snow banks and some ice.
But this is such a cute town.  I wish we could stay longer .  We have found a great air bnb. 

Tomorrow we have plans to drive to Palm springs, grand canyon and to Prescott Arizona.  Hoping for some great pictures!!!

To top of this night was the moon

After the last port of call we had two day's of sailing to get back to Sydney.   On the first night at sea was a great party with a balloon drop

In the bay of islands we went to a wonderful rain forest where some of the trees are over 1000 years old

In Aukland were picked up by Victoria and Seru Mar friends of John he met on his marques islands cruise.  Unfortunately Victoria had to go to work but seru was a great tour guide   thank you

Napier was another quaint village but more touristy   still great to walk around

Next was tauranga   we had a city tour.  From one port to the next it's very hard to say which is the most picturist
Here are some pictures of
Mount maunganui.  The last taken from the back of the boat as we were leaving

Also I believe this is the night John could not decide which dessert to have

Wellington was our next port of call.  Another beautiful place for scenery

Here we had a tour of Weta which is a company that specializes in special effects for movies and tv shows

Also some great scenery
We had a short walking tour of a couple locations where the Lord of the rings movies were filmed 
Do you recognize this tree?

Our next port was akaroa   this was a very quaint coastal town that we needed to take tenders to.   I wish we had more time here but we boarded buses for the drive to Christchurch   this was a very winding mountain road.   A few times I had to close my eyes