Getting to New Zealand, US to Auckland

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Hello Friends and Family,
Finally getting around to journalling about our experiences here. We arrived in Auckland on Aug 6, but started the trip on the 3rd. First flight from Philadelphia was delayed due to mechanical problems, which had an evil domino effect to our whole travelling plan. One bright light was an unexpected overnight layover(Aug 3) in Atlanta and a visit with my brother Dave and his family. We were a day late (Aug 4) for our flight from LAX to Auckland and were charged an extra $100 per ticket penalty. When booking flights online and using two separate airlines, tell both airlines your flight itinerary, neither Delta nor Air New Zealand wanted to take responsibility (nor were they very helpful) Lugging our luggage from the domestic to the oversees terminal in LAX was a nightmare. We took as much as we could on the plane as we are planning to be here for two years and weren't sure if we would be sending more stuff over. Lets just say we had to do what seemed like a mile long sprint in the California heat to get to the oversees terminal with hundreds of pounds of luggage with only an hour and a half layover ( due to a reticketing problem and overbooked flights) and had to get through customs as well as the typical airport search. We were escorted right up to board the plane and were some of the last passangers to board the 747 to take the 12 hour flight to Auckland. After what we had been through, the thought of being able to just sit and relax for that time was a welcoming thought.
Arriving in New Zealand we had to rummage through our belongings and find our winter jackets. After the extreme heat of summer in Pennsylvania, the relatively cool of NZ was good (for a short while anyway). Scott found a car he liked online before we left the states and the salesman was good enough to bring it to our hotel in Auckland for a test drive. Our main test was to see if our luggage would fit as the car was in Auckland but our destination was Wellington a nine hour drive. Lets just say the kids had no room to fight with each other for the trip, since they couldn't move. We spent 2 days in Auckland, which is a beautiful, clean city. We visited with Scott's job recruiter, walked around the city and went on a side trip to Piha Beach and also to Mission Bay were we saw a spectacular rainbow that seemed to be coming out of a dormant volcano. Not something you see everyday. Looking forward to spending more time in the Northern end of the North Island, but we had get to Wellington as we had much to do to get settled in to our new surroundings.
P.S. Keep in mind we crossed the international date line and didn't change the camera date settings until a few days later, that's why the dates on the pictures and the dates in the blog don't add up! We didn't drive to Piha until the 7th of Aug. Its about an hour drive from Auckland. Mission Bay is just a short 10 minute drive from city center.

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Photos

Piha Beach
Beautiful and very popular beach near Auckland

Mission Bay
Rainbows (was double) coming from a dormant volcano, very near Auckland

Our baggage
How did we ever fit it all in our vehicle?