AUCKLAND, CITY OF SAILS- OUR VISIT BETWEEN OCT. 20 AND NOV. 9, 2008

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AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

Welcome to Aotearoa - land of the long white cloud -New Zealand! We are here! We flew from Manila to Singapore to Auckland and arrived here on October 20th. Immediately we encountered the famous Kiwi hospitality. Grant, who was sitting beside us on the plane, drove us from the airport to our hostel! Fabulous kindness! Thank you Grant!

And thank you Betty and Bruno for recommending Bamber House in Mount Eden. It was a wonderful hostel and a great location in Auckland. We walked and explored and took the bus and took the ferries.

Auckland truly is the City of Sails. Glorious! Someone told us there is 1 sailboat to every 4 people. Is this possible? Our highlight was definitely sailing on the America’s Cup racing boat -wow!!! 2 hours out on the ocean with sunshine and fantastic winds -we were hiking so much we even took on water! The 5 crew were very fun and there were about 12 of us on board. We all got to help sail and to steer - and to work those grinders. Such a thrill!

We also explored the amazing Auckland Maritime Museum, the excellent Auckland Museum, the Art Gallery, Waiheke Island and a Blues and Jazz Festival that was happening there on the NZ Labour Day weekend and visited some great vineyards. And we spent a half day in beautiful artsy Devonport on the north shore.

We also found it was very cold after our 6 hot months touring Asia. It is early spring here and the temperatures have been about 20 C. or less! I am sure none of you in Canada are sending us any sympathy! We bought fleece jackets on our first day to keep warm. And we decided we definitely needed one more island time with heat so booked for 9 glorious days on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands - paradise! Thank you Logan and Betty and Bruno for recommending we go there! More on this in our next blog.

When we came back to Auckland from the Cook Islands, we reconnected with a wonderful couple we met over dinner in Auckland (at an excellent restaurant named O’Sarracino - like Ciao Bella in Vancouver) and they invited us to stay at their lovely home in Grey Lynn in Auckland -and we did! For 3 nights! Very fun plus we got to experience the NZ election with them on Nov.8th. Thank you Ron and Allayne for such a wonderful time and we look forward to seeing you on our return to Auckland in mid December!

On November 9th we headed off in our bright orange ”Spaceship” camper van to tour the North and South Islands. The scenery is stunning everywhere and we will fill you in with more stories and photos on the next blogs!

It is Saturday, November 21, 2008 now and we are heading across the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton today, a 3 hour ferry ride!

Hugs to you! Take care!

Al and Robin

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Comments

[julia and christoph]

hey there! it sounds you guys had a wonderful time in auckland... as we will also go there in mid february, we keep your blog in mind! and we're really looking forward to your 'cook island' blog entry! we are heading back to kathmandu tomorrow, to leave to india during the next days! take care love julia and christoph

[julia and christoph]

sth went wrong, so we try again
hey there! it sounds you has a wonderful time in auckland! we keep you entry in mind, as we'll also go to auckland in mid february! and we are looking forward to your 'cook island' entry - i guess there will be amazing photos :-) at the moment, we are in pokhara (nepal): the town itself isn't that interesting, but you can really do great things here - e.g. we went paragliding, which was great fun! tomorrow, we are heading back to kathmandu and leave the next days to india! we hope you are fine! greetings and love julia and christoph