Valene's 1964 Los Angeles Geographical Society tour to the South Pacific began with a Pan American flight from Los Angeles to Nadi, Fiji, with a stop in Honolulu. Nadi was the gateway to New Zealand, as Auckland did not yet have an airport that could handle Boeing 707 aircraft. Valene and her mother, Lucy, came in from San Francisco via Qantas and joined up with the rest of us in Nadi. From there, we took a connecting Pan American DC-7C to Auckland's Whenuapai airport. North Island sightseeing included Auckland itself and its coastal landscape, the Auckland War Memorial Museum (the national museum of New Zealand), the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, the Rotorua and Wairākei thermal areas and the Whakarewarewa Maori village. At Waitomo Caves, visitors take a boat through the grotto. Periodically, the guide turns off the
... read more
