We Are In New Zealand

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We had an uneventful trip to San Francisco where we met our grandniece Paige. After 3 movies, several cat naps and 13 hours we landed in Auckland, NZ. We flew on Air New Zealand which has very nice service and excellent food. Reminded me of the service we had on Air France when we went to Italy in 2001. We let San Francisco at 7:45 PM on Dec. 31, they served champagne to everyone when the plane was in the time zine for midnight. We then landed at 5:55 AM of Jan. 2 having skipped Jan. 1 completely. The hour change between NZ and NV is only about 4 or 5 hours, but the day is different. How confusing can that be.

We picked up our van without any problems. We are not into high visibility when traveling, but will be hard to avoid with the lime green vehicle we have. Heads turn as we entered our first campground. David is doing pretty good driving on the wrong side of the road. Not to hard when you are actually driving, but pulling in and out of parking lots is hard because you just automatically want to go where you usually go. His biggest problem is that he turns on the windshield wipers every time he plans to turn on his turn signal. We are getting used to driving with the wipers on and may need to purchase new blades by the end of the trip.

We were all pretty tired when we arrived, but after organizing the van, which has no storage space at all, and a short nap we headed to the Auckland Botanic Gardens for the afternoon. 156 acres of trees, shrubs and flowers, many NZ native plants. Very well maintained and beautiful. Cooked our first dinner in the van and settled in for an early night.

Found driving in the Auckland area difficult since street signs are quite small and not at all intersections. Decided we needed to download NZ maps to the Garmin so spent a good part of our second day getting that done. We have now headed south and will be vising black sand beaches and other interesting features today. Best wishes for a Happy New Year from Down Under.

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Photos

Auckland Botanic Gardens
Interesting bird by one of the ponds in the gardens.