Seattle-London RT in October $566

Seems that the falling price of oil is finally starting to bite into flight prices -- Seattle-London round-trip through much of October is now down to $566 on US Airways, connecting in Philly or Charlotte. Once upon a time (2003), it was possible to get SEA-LHR offseason for just north of $300, but I think those days have probably passed now.

Sailing away

After a bit of a struggle trying to find a place to rent and sail small boats, I'm pleased to have found a fun and friendly sailing club at the Panmure lagoon.

The lagoon is tidal, so sailing is only possible a couple of hours before and after high tide, but they run training days or races almost every week, and so I'm hoping that my sailing skills will improve, as currently they leave something to be desired:

Silly things

There are a variety of crazy things to do available for tourists in Rotorua. Not being so keen to jump off or out of something high, we opted for zorbing. This entails being thrown inside a large inflatable sphere, with some water, and rolling down a hill. Actually, a lot more fun than it sounds:

Walking in a thermal wonderland

A summertime Christmas has been slightly strange, but we've been making the most of our time off, and our visitors, to travel around and see some more bits of the North Island. One of the favourites so far was the thermal wonderland that is Rotorua, complete with it's own authentic odour. There are many different places around Rotorua in which one can explore the thermal landscape, but the one we found most rewarding was the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland.

Here we found geysers:



Multicoloured pools:





and lots and lots of bubbling mud: