FOOTNOTES

1. WH is pronounced F in Maori, so this is pronounced Farifarangi.

2. Unlike the US, most restaurants in New Zealand allow you to Bring Your Own alcohol for a small corkage fee. A great idea!

3. InterCity is New Zealand's national bus line, like Greyhound here, and is quite good. The drivers even provide commentary and occasional rest/photo stops en route!

4. Fiordland Travel caters only to those people with their own transportation and isn't flexible at all - it reminded me of situations in the US where airlines have charged more to fly to Denver than to Pueblo, CO (through Denver!). Basically, it was easy (but very long days and expensive) to take the day trips with transportation from Queenstown, or to take them with no transportation provided, but we couldn't get them to let us take the trips with transportation from Te Anau, even though the Queenstown bus goes directly through Te Anau!

5. AKA greenstone AKA jade

6. Koori is the name many of Australia's aboriginals prefer.

7. We also saw some funky cows as were driving to Phillip Island. The front and rear sections were solid black, with the mid section solid white!

8. But I'm glad I'm not driving in Melbourne, where in addition to the millions of people, they drive funny: to make a right turn, you have to be in the leftmost lane, drive to the middle of the intersection (still in the left lane), wait until the light turns green for the other direction of traffic (that you'll now be in), and complete the turn. If that doesn't make sense, reverse the lefts and rights and imagine it. Only in Melbourne!

9. We also got stuck in a few Tasmanian traffic jams - a bunch of sheep being herded along the road a couple times, and some cows another time.

10. Amys, as Ryan, the talkative 3 year old on the bus, liked to call them. We thought he was a bit confused and tried to get him to pronounce the word correctly, but he showed that he was just playing a game by announcing, out of the blue (as were most of his comments), that "emus are the same as amys". He was also excited (for a few seconds, at least) by all the animals we saw, and was looking forward to seeing dinosaurs.

11. Obviously, either I can't count, this copy has been drastically edited from the original, or I can fit more typewritten words on a page than handwritten ones. Take option three - this journal is the electronic version of the 100 pages I wrote by hand on the trip. It's been edited somewhat, but not that much! So some things don't translate well to the computer... I wrote 100 handwritten pages on the trip, which turned into something like 40 typewritten, which turned into the pages you're reading now.

12. Zarin was searching zealously for pigs to strangle or take an axe to, but fortunately for all concerned, I think, we didn't see any.

13. I think that's what it's called. It's a good description anyway.

14. Also, avoiding frogs whenever we walked outside in the evening, and watching our resident lizard (Joe the Gecko) patrol the ceiling and walls in search of bugs to eat. It's amazing the agility they have on vertical and even upside down surfaces.
    

15. Pronounced Pa-pay-ay-tay. Polynesian pronunciation can be a challenge, but the general rule is that every syllable is pronounced. So Tahiti's airport, Faaa, is Fa-a-a!

16. Shikha says, "Don't get too excited; we still had our swimsuits on from the waterfall swim."

17. Traditional meeting places or religious sites. Common among the Maoris in New Zealand, too.

18. It's called a lionfish, we discovered later.