The main purpose for this trip will be to see the Aurora Borealis. Since the best time to view the Northern Lights is between September and March, and those two months are the warmer ones, we will go either March or September 2011.

Secondly, the months of March and September combine sufficiently dark skies with mild temperatures for comfortable viewing.As NASA astronomer Sten Odenwald notes, observations from Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin during a 55-year period spanning five sunspot cycles confirm that March and September are the most frequent months for auroras and January and July the least likely. Most solar activity comes from regions of the sun outside the solar equatorial band plus or minus 10° to either side of the solar equator.

The Earth in its orbit is inside this equatorial band during January and July, and when it is at it maximum heliographic latitudes in September and March, the Earth is in the zone of maximum solar activity. Another factor in choosing a “best time of year” has to be comfort for the viewer.

The plan will be to go to Alaska, see the Aurora Borealis, polar bears, do a little hiking and sightseeing and visit as many beautiful places as possible.

Here is what the trip looks like as of now:

Day 1

• Arrive Athens, Greece
• Drive to Loutraki and stay

Day 2

• Visit Ancient Corinth ruins – morning
• Visit Corinth Castle ruins – lunch
• Epidaurus – evening just before closing time when there are very few people visiting

Day 3

• Visit Heraion ruins

Day 4

• Visit Athens

Day 5, 6, 7

• Stay on the island of Milos

This time to Greece, I am looking into doing a few days on one of Greece’s islands. We will go to Athens, Loutraki, Corinth, and visit several new places including an island before heading back to Japan.

We will go to Greece around the first week of December, 2010, which is harvest time for olives.

We will do what is called an Agro Tour where we will actually participate in harvesting the olives and possibly even press our own olive oil. Since we will be going during harvest time, we will also join in on harvest festivals and fun things that happen during that time period.

Anyone wishing to join in on the fun and do some olive harvesting along with sightseeing Greece, eating delicious food and relaxing in the warm Mediterranean sun, give me a call, email me or contact me through this site.

For those of you who are in these pictures and you wish to download copies, right-click on the images you like and the click Save Image. This will save the images to your computer.

NOTE: If you wish to have the larger originals, register on my site and then contact me using the messaging system built into this site. I will help you get the originals instead of the smaller sized images.

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On Tuesday we left at 6am to make it for our Milford Sound cruise at 10:30 and left the apartment at 4:45 Wednesday morning to get to our Franz Josef Glacier hike. It  was so nice to sleep in today!

We arrived at the Queenstown Rafting start point to get our wetsuits, booties, dry-gear, oars and life vests before taking a 45-minute bus ride up and over a mountain to the drop-off point to begin our rafting trip down the Shotover.

The journey to the point was on a mountain road cut out by gold miners way way back when gold was being mined out of this area, probably over a hundreds years back or so. The road was dirt the majority of the way and just wide enough for one car, or in our case a bus. If oncoming traffic was present, someone had to back up to a point along the steep mountain cliff to where the other could pass. If you have a fear of heights, you should sleep on the bus. Otherwise, this road may cause you to pass out from fear, especially if you look out the windows and down!

Our float down the Shotover lasted around 2 hours. It was a really fun rafting trip and no one from our boat went overboard. However, one woman from the Kuwahara boat did go overboard; an woman from New York who had rafted one other time many years ago. I guess rafting is not like riding a bike?

The rafting driver for our boat, luckily, had learned a little Japanese while doing rafting tours in Australia. He did a great job telling everyone what to do in nihongo! His name is Tom! For those Japanese reading this, get him to be your driver and you will go down river without a hitch.

Hats off to Tom and Chris, a 19-year old guy who is learning to be a rafting guide-driver. You guys did a good job today and made the trip very fun for everyone. The conversation was also great.

After rafting, we went on a little drive around the area, found some sheep and a shepherd and his dogs and took some photos. Then we went shopping at our favorite place, Fresh Choice, bought groceries for tonight and tomorrow morning and then took the van back to Hertz.

After that, we went downtown and shopped for omiyage, drank coffee at Starbucks where we met a girl from Toyonaka, Osaka and then came back to our apartment where we are now preparind mussels, vegetables, meats and breads for dinner. Wine and beer to wash it all down!

Tomorrow: Auckland!

This has been a beautiful trip. But then of course, it’s very difficult to find anything not beautiful in New Zealand!

Will post pictures of our trip today and yesterday later tonight.

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The luge ride was a blast! I highly recommend doing it. But I believe the company would do better to allow two rides for the current price to allow people who are beginners another chance around to enjoy the ride even more than the first time. Still, everyone had a lot of fun riding their luges down the track, some ever so slowly.

The restaurant has a beautiful view of Queenstown and offers a really nice buffet with lots of savory seafood dishes, pies, salads, breads, stews and soups, meats and vegetables. We ate our fill!

On our hike through the pine forest, we found lots of mushrooms among the tall pines. Of course we did not eat any of them because they are most likely poisonous. But they sure looked delicious!

After all the fun on top of the mountain, we picked up our van and drove around outside the city limits to see what is just north near the Shotover river. We watched the Shotover jet boat going at that time zipping up and down the river with the riders screaming their heads off enjoying the thrilling ride. It looked like a lot of fun and everyone in the group said they would love to ride it, if we had time. Probably not!

From the Shotover, we headed back to our favorite shopping market, Fresh Choice, and picked up some more groceries.

NOTE: Most other markets in town are tourist traps and would get more business if they lowered their prices. Anyone going to Queenstown should shop at Fresh Choice to save money!

When we got back to our place, the Heritage Apartments, we began cooking our dinner. Everyone said they were not hungry, but fixed tons of food! Tons! It was huge and we didn’t eat it all, but it sure was good. Pumpkin, salad, roasted chicken, egg and cheese omelete, bread, grapes, blackberries, mushrooms (not picked from the forest) and very dark beer.

Everyone ate well. This time, however, without stuffing themselves. Now, it is time to prepare for tomorrow.

Milford Sound here we come!

More tomorrow…

I woke up early this morning at 6am to call Sunrise Balloons and got their recording saying the today’s flight had been cancelled due to unsuitable weather.

Instead of hot air ballooning today, we are going to take the steepest gondola in the southern hemisphere up a mountainside to the top of the mountain and do some hiking. After a short hike, we will eat a buffet lunch at the restaurant at the top of the mountain overlooking Queenstown.

After that, still pending…