A Daily Blog
We traveled to Australia and New Zealand with Gate 1 Travel, going to three major cities in Australia and traveling mainly around the South Island of New Zealand. We had traveled around the North Island in a Volkswagen camper a few years ago, but felt with the vastness of Australia, an organized tour was the easier way to go. We missed the freedom of wandering as our whims dictated, but really enjoyed the ease of travel that Gate 1 afforded. We had plane flights and hotels booked, transportation from airports to hotels arranged and city tours included, with optional tours we could book through them. Only five people were on the Australian leg of our tour, and we had one less when we headed for New Zealand, but still the tour ran as scheduled, with informed, entertaining guides meeting us at every juncture. The hotels were great and well located and tours helped us get oriented to each city. Gate 1 is a good option for travelers who don?t require an accompanying guide traveling with them.
We were met in LA by Marijan Dravinski, our friend from the
It was a bit busy on the roads to LAX, but we were there in plenty of time for the flight. We spent our time reading, doing puzzles, and sharing a grilled chicken salad, and time passed fairly quickly. The flight was off in good time, as were all the other 14 flights on the journey. I watched Ghost Town, Juno, and Vickie Christina Barcelona and Dick slept a bit more than I did. Thank heavens for movies! The flight was 12+ hours so there was lots of time to pass. But the flight was empty enough that Dick and I could both have three seats to stretch out on, which helped immensely. In the process of flying past the International Date Line, we lost January 1st and it was January 2nd. We arrived in
We decided to walk down
We got up and to breakfast around 8, then headed out to the Botanical Gardens. We walked around, finding the bat trees by thinking we were headed to a duck pond from all the noise. Overhead hundreds of grey-headed flying foxes hung from the trees, chattering very noisily and fanning themselves with their wings to cool off. Walking further we saw sulphur-crested cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets, and kookaburras- all of which can be seen on Dick's bird site (carolinabirds.org).
Then I took the boat to the beach, put my camera in its waterproof bag and hit the reefs. The scenery below was wonderful. The corals were amazing and varied, from spaghetti coral that waved in the currents to brain corals and staghorn corals. They took front stage from the fish- which were lovely too. Amazing giant clams had vivid blue ‘lips' sticking out from their shells and I swam with a ray for a short time.
January 9 (Friday)- Cairns to Melbourne
We got up at 3:30 AM to catch the bus to the airport at 4:05. I dozed my way through the morning as we changed planes in Brisbane, shared pancakes in that airport and arrived in Melbourne at 1:30 PM. We stayed at the Raddison on Flagstaff, the first hotel on the bus drop-off schedule. It was just a block from the Queen Victoria Market, lots of vendor stalls in vast airplane hangar type buildings. Dick went shopping for practical things like an electrical adaptor, since he had accidentally left one in the wall socket at the airport in Brisbane, and a new leather belt. I browsed around and got various gifts and some cute Australian wrapping paper. The market held a huge array of goods, from the vegetable, cheese and meat of the furthest building to digeridoos and boomerangs and everyday clothing and household items. The market was closing up around me, people storing their goods back in large wheeled metal containers, when I finished. So I checked out locations of stalls I wanted to revisit between our tours the next day. I walked back to the hotel in cool, breezy weather, a relief after the heat and humidity of Cairns.
Dick and I walked through Flagstaff Gardens, across from the hotel, with the intention of going to the harbor, but never found our way there. So we rested in the hotel for a while, then did go to the harbor which wasn't as spectacular as Sydney 's. We walked around looking for a place to eat, but the harbor area was still under development and none of the restaurants there had opened yet. So we did a slow walk back towards the hotel and finally decided on a cute pub, where I had fish and chips and Dick had Irish Stew, washed down with a lager and lime. The pub was crowded with people celebrating the end of the work week. Then we spent our usual evening back at the hotel, Dick working on photos and me reading and writing people on the internet.
January 10 (Saturday)- Melbourne
We were up for breakfast at 6:30. Our hotel had an even greater variety than before with rambutans for fruit, a variety of tropical juices and even honey in the comb. Our tour bus came at 7:55 and once again just picked up people at hotels and took us to a central point to get on the actual tour bus for the morning city tour of Melbourne. We drove through many neighborhoods and stopped at the Fitzroy Gardens. Along the walk way were several historic cottages. We saw the Fairy Tree, a carved fairyland of animals and fairies, and the miniature village across from it. Then as we walked away, we saw a little girl dressed in her fairy costume, coming for storytelling around the tree later in the morning. Charming! Also in the park was the cottage owned by Capt. Cook's mother and father and a Conservatory filled with flowers.
We drove on from there to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Dick and I walked around the pond and he took photos of birds including black swans and moorhens. We made a second stop at a craft fair and walked around there, seeing a booth with fairy costumes as well as ones with puppets and specialty foods. I got a loaf of ‘artisan' sourdough bread. There was a statue at the entrance which showed an old-timer who would take supplies by mule into the outback, then bringing injured or ill men out on the mule's back on his return trip to civilization.
We waited a long time for one of the free trolleys to take us back to the hotel. One of the women waiting with us was a young Canadian web animation designer who was going to ‘interview' cities and towns in New Zealand to find where she would live and continue her free-lance business for the next year. She and I got off at the stop for Victoria Market.
I got some cheddar cheese and went back to the hotel where we snacked on the bread and cheese with the complimentary cocoa the hotel provided. Then I headed back to the market. I bought myself an opal ring and some opal gifts and a digeridoo for Rob. They were selling embroidered T shirts for $5, so I couldn't resist getting myself a second one with koalas on it. After hitting all the booths I had wanted to, I went back to the hotel for a short rest before our next tour.
We got the bus to the Penguin Parade at 4:45 and drove for an hour and three-quarters to Phillip Island. On the drive we saw wallabies and the drivers showed a video about the penguins. We were early (the penguins don't come out of the water until 9:30 at this time of year) so the driver made a stop on a cliff overlooking the penguin arena. The views were beautiful. At the lodge we were amused by the signs that warned people to look under their cars before driving off, in case a penguin was hiding there. Dick wandered around and got a very good picture of a wallaby. There was still plenty of time so I had a chicken schnitzel and a glass of wine provided by Connie and Gene.
The ‘arena' consisted of two sets of cement bleachers with a central grassy area fronting the sea, with floodlights to let us see the ‘parade.' We stayed to the side of one set of bleachers, where the driver had advised us we'd see much more as the penguins passed right by us on the way to their burrows. While we waited, we were amused by two baby penguins, almost close enough to touch, who were obviously waiting impatiently for their parents to return from the sea with food. The adult penguins leave and return in the dark to keep themselves safer from predators, and this evening march has become a major tourist attraction. So we waited, well bundled up until around 9:30 when the first small groups of seven or eight penguins swam ashore and worked up the courage to cross the sand to the safety of their holes. We saw about 75, I would guess, a light night for penguin travel. After 35 minutes or so, we walked back up the long path to the museum/restaurant and saw penguins still walking up the paths to their nests. Dick and I wandered around the periphery of the parking lots and I tried to get one photo of a penguin, verboten in the area between the lodge and the sea, which was frustrating for Dick, the bird photographer, and me, as well. We got back on the bus around 10:15 and dozed our way back to the hotel, arriving around 12:30, happy to call it a day.
January 11 (Sunday)- Melbourne
We had a later start for tours this morning, so checked email. At 9:30 we met Paul, our guide for the Full Day Savannah Walkabout, who reminded me of Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. We had two other couples from other hotels, and our tour mate, Susan on the trip. On the way to You Yangs Park, Paul showed us a notebook with photos of some of the koalas we might be able to see. The park naturalist had gone out koala-spotting earlier in the morning and left Paul a map under a rock, telling him where to go to spot the ones she'd found. In addition, she had tied ribbons around trees near the koala trees, so we were able to find all the ones she had noted. We saw koalas named Karen, Vegemite, and Maya and two unidentified females. The koalas seemed to be sleeping much of the time, and since they spend 20 hours a day doing that, it wasn't surprising. They would react to our noises, then go back to sleep.
After seeing all the koalas, we drove to Serendip, another nature preserve. We had a picnic lunch of sandwiches, fruit, cookies and Billy tea- made with lemon eucalyptus leaves. Paul swung the teakettle in circles at his side to brew it, just as they did in the Outback. Dick had wandered off during lunch preparations and got a great picture of a kangaroo not far from the lunch area.
When we finished lunch we drove, then walked many areas to see a large group of emus, water birds, wallabies, and kangaroos. We were able to get reasonably close to all the animals. Paul showed us giant Bull Ants able to deliver nasty bites, but no one got close enough to check the painfulness. We walked to the top of a large rock outcropping and saw places where Aborigines had carved out basins in the sandstone to catch rainwater for their survival. It was a lovely, sunny day with a pleasant group of people and we were very glad we had chosen to do this optional trip. We had seen lots of Australian animals behind bars, but wanted to see them in the ‘wild,' and this tour satisfied that wish.
We walked around looking for someplace to have dinner and reluctantly settled on a McDonalds, but got our local color there when football (soccer) supporters showed up with faces painted team colors. Back at the hotel, we climbed to the top floor to get photos of the downtown from that vantage point. We went back to the room to organize for flying to New Zealand in the morning. When I looked at my photos I was happy to see that my penguin photo turned out and that I got several kangaroos in mid-hop.
January 12 (Monday) Melbourne to Christchurch , NZ
We got up and were in the hotel lobby by 6AM. We checked our email and ate some of the food in the breakfast box while we were waiting for the bus to the airport. We had more than two hours to wait in the airport, so Dick worked on photos on the computer. The plane ride took 3 hours, but we had to set clocks ahead 2 hours as well. I watched How to Lose Friends and Alienate People but was dozing by the end. We had breakfast on the plane.
At the Christchurch Airport they threw away my cheese and apple and took some time to inspect the digeridoo. Our driver took us to the Copthorne Hotel, just a short walk from the center of Christchurch (as we discovered after roaming all over town
before looking from the balcony of the hotel's restaurant and seeing the ice cream cone like sculpture in Cathedral Square ). We sat with Gene and Connie while they had their complimentary drinks, but we decided to have fish and chips in the hotel that night and use our drink vouchers then. We took our first walk in the town to the Botanic Gardens which followed along the River Avon and walked through the Rose Garden. It was cool, but sunny. Dick got some bird photos and photos of the very tall trees in the gardens.
We did eat at the hotel that evening, sitting out on the balcony. When we looked over the city and saw how close the city square was, we couldn't believe what a roundabout way we had gone to get back to the hotel. Still we did manage to get our bearing and were ready for the next day's city tour.
January 13 (Tuesday)- Christchurch
We ate at the breakfast buffet in the hotel, and were picked up by Julian, our driver, at 8:55. He drove us up the streets behind the city to an overlook and to a beach. We saw the old Parliamentary Building and a restaurant where Bill Clinton had eaten. It was a very pleasant tour for just the four of us. Julian left us off at the Antarctic Center at noon.
The Center housed the buildings that expeditionary forces from America, New Zealand and other countries used while they were preparing for trips. But it also had a Center for the general public to experience what Antarctic explorations were about. In the first room you experienced an Antarctic year, with its 24 hour days and nights and even a snowfall in the winter phase.
Then we put on boots (to keep the snow clean) and jackets for reasons that became very obvious, and went into the room that simulates an Antarctic winter storm. Inside was an ice slide and kids, and some grown-ups, enjoyed sliding down that while waiting for the storm to come. We heard weather forecasts warning of the storm and could see the temperature go way down on a thermometer. During the storm, the winds rose to 40 mph and the temperature plunged to -18. That was pretty chilly, especially for the kids in shorts who stood shivering.
Beyond the storm room were historical and geographical displays about the Antarctic and a movie on life in Antarctica now. A penguin display showed Little Blue penguins both above and below water, all of the penguins being rescued with injuries that needed time to heal. There were displays of sleds, food, and tents used in earlier explorations. You could also take a ride on an Antarctic vehicle, but the line was so long and the vehicles so few and far between, that we got on the bus with the penguins on top of it, and drove back to the city center.
There were street performers, musicians and magicians, and a market in CathedralSquare so we wandered around for a while. We bought bread, a cheese roll, and peanuts and walked around eating them. A convenience store had internet, so we checked email and Dick ordered a prescription. We again went the wrong (long) way back to the hotel and got there around 4:30. I started a load of laundry and Dick worked on photos. We had ‘drinking chocolate' in the room.
When the laundry was dry, we went out for dinner and made no mistakes on the way downtown for a change. I got KFC chicken and Dick got a sandwich at SubWay and we ate on a bench in the square with seagulls and sparrows begging from us and other al fresco diners. On the way back to the hotel, Dick left me to wander through gift shops and went back to work on photos again, selecting the ones from Christchurch he wanted to use on the web. I bought a few gifts and went back to repack and get ready to move on the next morning.
January 14 (Wednesday) Christchurch to Christchurch Hospital
Dick woke me at 5:15, saying that he had had wakened with chest pain and sweating. We got a taxi to Christchurch Hospital. He was taken into the emergency room while I gave information to the receptionist, but just health information and name and address. We have yet to get a request for any insurance information. They did an EKG and blood test and brought us tea and Dick, breakfast.
After a fair wait and visit by a doctor who told us all tests were fine so far, they moved Dick to Ward 26, Room 11 which he shared with three other men. I stayed until 12:30 then walked back to the hotel, beginning by walking in the wrong direction which seemed to be our habit in Christchurch. I looked at the Christmas windows in their largest department store and got some chicken and a milkshake and ate on the way.
I slept for a couple of hours, then walked back, taking pj's, underwear and a toothbrush to Dick in case he had to stay overnight, buying a loaf of French bread and a cheese roll on the way.
When I got back, Dick had found a sore spot on his chest and was relatively sure that had caused the pain he'd felt and it was not heart related. Around 5 they did a second blood test and third EKG. I went down to eat in the cafeteria while we waited for results. The results were negative again, and with the blessings of his great nurse, Elizabeth, and against the doctor's wishes, Dick decided to sign himself out of the hospital. We left in a taxi around 8:30.
Back at the hotel, the desk clerk read us a fax saying that Emma, the local travel agent, had cancelled our travel to Dunedin and Te Anu and booked us into Queenstown instead. That wasn't what we had wanted when we had called them earlier from the hospital. I had left a message to tell them Dick would be out of the hospital and we wanted to continue with the tour as planned. So the clerk helped us book a bus to Dunedin in the morning and we left a message at Connie and Gene's Dunedin hotel room telling them we hoped to see them on the bus to Te Anu. Dick showered, we set alarm clocks and prepared to spend the next day on buses playing catch-up with the tour.
January 15 (Thursday)- Christchurch to Dunedin to Te Anu
We had breakfast, then rolled our suitcases to the bus stop, just off Cathedral Square. Dick wandered off taking bird photos while we waited. At 7:45 we took the Naked Bus (not sure why the name) to Dunedin. At a stop along the way, we rebooked for the bus from Dunedin to Te Anu on the Intercity Line with the help of our bus driver. We had to repay for the buses and a tour the company cancelled but had travel insurance and are awaiting repayment.
When we got into Dunedin we had about ten minutes to find where the other bus was, but managed by asking a young girl for directions to the bus station. When we saw Connie and Gene on the bus, they were very happy to see us, but had never gotten the phone message I left. The bus was a double decker, so we rode on top at first, but an overexcited chatty group of preteens encouraged us to move back down at the next stop.
At the Distinction Luxmore Hotel they reinstated our room and commiserated with us about the pre-emptive strike the travel company (the subsidiary that Gate 1 uses) had made in disrupting our bookings prematurely. They called our Queenstown hotel to make sure we were still booked in there.
We got into our room about 7PM and decided to go right out again and not miss any of the day. We walked down to Lake Te Anu and Dick looked for birds while I got a couple of pieces of beach glass and some green stones I hoped were Greenstone, a mineral the Maori used for decorations and weapons. We sat outside at a restaurant and had broccoli soup and homemade bread. Then we bought peanuts for snacks on our trips and headed back to the hotel. I emailed Emma, the woman who had revised our travel. We got to bed around 11- late for us.
January 16 (Friday)- Te Anu, Milford Sound, Queenstown
Dick got up by 7, walking in search of birds along the lake's edge. We had breakfast and I called Emma at the travel agency and the bus company and was told that Gate 1 would have to repay us for reinstating our tour activities. We took a very short shuttle ride to the tour bus, stowed our suitcases under the bus and walked through the gift shop and café by the bus stop. We would go directly from the cruise to our next hotel in Queensland.
The bus ride to Milford Sound took about three hours, with several short stops along the way in Fiordlands National Park , one to see a chasm where water had sculpted rocks into fantastic shapes. It rained a good deal on the walk but was warm enough that it didn't matter much. We would have preferred bright skies and clear visibility, but the tour guide said rain was better because we would see dozens of waterfalls that dried up quickly after rains.
And it was true. It brightened up a bit on the early part of the cruise and there were waterfalls everywhere, spilling down in thin ribbons from high in the cliffs. We saw New Zealand seals swimming and resting on the rocks. At one point the boat backed into a waterfall and some of the younger people on board stayed out in the open as they got drenched by the spray. They served a nice buffet lunch, then we just roamed around the different decks getting photos of the beautiful scenery. At one point, when we were on the top deck, my foam cup of tea got blown off the boat. It certainly wasn't balmy, but fun all the same.
We docked at 3 and traveled back to Te Anu, interrupted only by a large flock of sheep, being driven to be sheared, which eventually flowed by us like a wooly river. The men driving them were in a four-wheeler with their four sheepdogs in the wagon in back. We enjoyed the scenery, dozed and did puzzles on the way back and stopped at the earlier gift shop for shopping and refreshments which included a huge ice cream cone (for me) for about $1.25. Then we continued on for two hours to reach Queenstown.
Around 7:30 we arrived at the Millennium Hotel and had a room overlooking their central garden. We got tourist brochures from the lobby and began planning our time in Queenstown and Dick worked on photos. We watched CNN until bedtime, catching up on world, and inauguration news.
January 17 (Saturday)- Queenstown
We were up at 7:30 and met Kevin, our Queenstown guid at 9. First we drove around Queenstown, seeing its Saturday markets, closed-to-traffic shopping streets and Lake Wakatipu. Then we drove to the Shotover Jetboat operation. All was quiet there because yesterday's rains had made the river too high for it to be safe to barrel the boats through the steep canyons they usually went through. But we saw the boats and the river, even if not in action.
Then we drove to Arrowtown, home of early gold mining. We drove out to the Chinese miners town, miners who were brought in after the original Gold Rush miners moved on, then not treated too nicely by the locals. Their homes were small and very basic, but the location was lovely. The town was very cute with some of the original buildings such as the assayers, which was now part of the museum. A bit of recent excitement occurred when a man, swimming with flippers in the river, swept the sand off of a good sized gold nugget on the river floor, worth $30-40,000. That was motivation enough for me to seek out where gold pans could be rented and plan to come back the next day to dabble in the river.
From there we went on to the original bungee site- A.J. Hackett Bungee Center and watched a few people take the plunge. Queenstown isn't known as The Adventure Capital of New Zealand for nothing. But none of us were looking for those kinds of thrills!
Our next stop was at the Gibbston Valley Winery and Cheesery. Dick went off looking for birds amongst the vines, while Connie, Gene, and I did the winery tour with a group of 30 or so Latvians who brought their own translator with them. We heard about the vines and saw the tiny grapes growing there. And on the way to the cave we passed the vats where wine was first processed. The cave was man-made and lined with casks. It widened at the end and there we sampled three kinds of very good wine including their prize-winning 2006 Pinot Noir.
On the way back to Queenstown we saw Kevin's B&B and Dick got photos of a quail crossing the road there.
We rested for a short while at the hotel, then walked down a very steep hill across from the Millenium to get to the lakefront. From there we walked to the Botanic Gardens on a peninsula. A lovely pond had beautiful pink and white waterlillies and birds for Dick to photograph. Then we followed the waterfront to the city center. We had lunch on the balcony of a very nice Thai restaurant which overlooked the shopping street, eating curry in the sunshine and people watching below.
I wanted to go to Bird Wildlife Park , so we climbed the hill behind the town to the place where the cable cars left to go up to the top of the hill. We were just in time for the nature talk, so we saw the guide talk about the tuatara, a prehistoric lizard that lived with the dinosaurs and is still found there in New Zealand. We learned about kiwis from a stuffed bird she held, showing us how huge her egg was in contrast to her body. The poor female kiwi can't eat with the large egg inside her, squishing her organs and has to starve until it is laid. The last act in the nature show was a trained rainbow lorikeet who flew back and forth between the guides, barely missing the heads of people in the audience.
We wandered through the park after that, going in Kiwi House #2 first. We could see the kiwis moving around in the dim light, searching through the woodsy floor for things to eat, but no photography was allowed. As we walked through the other exhibits we saw the birds being fed by the guide. Dick got quite a few pictures of new birds, but those in wildlife parks never seem as authentic to him as those he catches in the natural world. They had a miniature Maori hunting village, but it didn't compare to the real villages we saw on our first trip to New Zealand.
So back down the hill to town we went and walked along the pier where other speedboat rides and parasailors went off. Dick photographed a pair of Australian Crested Grebes, while I went down to an underwater viewing area and watched huge trout swim by and diving ducks plunging through the water. As we walked through the streets, we bumped into Connie and Gene. They had walked up the hill beside the lake and liked the views from up there, so we planned to do that before we left Queenstown. We bought a loaf of French bread and some apple blackcurrant juice and went back to the hotel. We worked on photos, watched CNN, and The Flight of the Phoenix before calling it a night.
January 18 (Sunday)- Queenstown- Arrowtown
We ate breakfast then caught the bus to Arrowtown just past the hotel. There wer lots of stops- for the airport and a shopping center as well as in small towns. I rented my gold pan and trowel for $3 plus a $10 deposit from the museum. We walked down to the stream, then took off our shoes and waded across to the larger river beyond. I dug, dipped and swirled for a couple of hours, finding nothing, but glad to have done it anyway. Dick wandered off and actually got photos of a new bird. I turned in my gold pan and waited for the hourly bus, but then wandered off to take town photos since I had ten minutes or so. Dick arrived at the bus stop, then wandered off in search of me, afraid I'd miss the bus, but I was back with three minutes to spare. We eventually both made the bus and got back to the center of Queenstown.
We shared an order of blueberry pancakes that Gene and Connie had recommended the night before and bought a bag of cherries on the shopping street. Since we had bought all-day bus passes, we decided to explore the area north of the town, so hopped on a bus which stopped at many resorts on its way up the hill. At a random stop, we got off and walked downhill toward Queenstown, stopping to eat cherries and watch parasailers as we went. We walked through the art market and back up the hill to our hotel.
Our clothes needed washing again, so we used the hotel laundry and I sent return plane times to Bob and Rob. Then we walked in rain into town again and had grilled fish and chips. Dick was still hungry so he got a 6” sub and I got a chocolate chip cookie. Then we walked back up the hill to the hotel in the rain. I worked on my last two days' photos and we watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Dick got an email from Heather talking about her future plans. We packed our suitcases once more for the final city, Auckland , on our tour.
January 19 (Monday)- Queensland to Auckland
We went to breakfast and still had plenty of time, so I ironed my pants and shirts. We went down to check out and Dick worked on photos in the Business Center until the bus came to take us to the airport. The New Zealand airports seem to make you wait downstairs in a large waiting room until your flight is called to go to the gate. It saves having many small waiting rooms at the departure gates. With few, if any retractable gates, we had to walk outside and climb steps to get into our plane. Our flight was around fifteen minutes late, but the trip was uneventful. They offered us cookies, chips, or lollies (candies) and tea, coffee, or water.
We were met at the Auckland Airport by Mike, our Gate 1 guide at the baggage carousel. It took about 30 minutes to drive to the Heritage Hotel on Nelson, two blocks from the harbor. The room was amazing, with a dishwasher in the kitchenette and a washer/dryer in the bathroom, right next to the bathrobes.
We walked down to the harbor, past the Volendam which we had seen in harbor in Australia and along the waterfront where I had gotten mugged by pigeons on our first trip to New Zealand. We went up the hill into Albert Park, then back through the city center looking for a place to eat. After passing a lot of cafes, which were only open for breakfast and lunch, we found an Indian restaurant in a food court where I got curry and Dick had sweet & sour chicken. We walked form there to the Sky Tower , then back to the hotel. We worked on photos, planned the next day, and I sewed the strap back on the backpack.
January 20 (Tuesday)- Auckland
We walked a very roundabout way past the outdoor tennis courts to breakfast in the other tower. At 9 we left for our city tour with Mike, the guide that picked us up at the airport. We drove to different parts of the city, past the cargo port and over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Then we were dropped off at the Auckland Museum where we toured the Maori section including a very ornate marae (place of worship and gathering). We walked through the nature section and Dick was able to identify a few birds he had photographed. Another section had a volcano which had ‘lava' flowing down its sides.
Two Maori from the performance came out and gathered those who had tickets for the performance. The singing and dancing were very good and the talk in between numbers, informative. The performers posed for photos with the audience members afterwards.
Out next stop was Mt. Eden , the tallest of the 48 volcanic craters around the city. There were great views of the city below. When the tour was over, Mike dropped us down at the ferry terminal. We got tickets for the 1 o'clock ferry to Waihike Island and hurried across the street to pick up the fish and chips we had ordered first. It was very pleasant eating our lunch on the 40 minute catamaran ride to the island.
When we reached Waihike Island we walked along the beach by the ferry terminal, then followed a hiking trail to Oneroa. I walked through their art museum which had interesting projects by local artists- colorful paintings and canes with sculpted wire duck heads for handles.
We walked down to the town beach, then went as far to the left as we could- then to the far right, which had sculpted rocks in the water and cliffs above. I found flat and rounded scallops, beautifully colored clams and sun dials. Dick got photos of shearwaters from atop the cliffs. The area was lovely with small beaches hidden by the rocks along the shore. And the weather was beautiful for most of the day, with just ignorable sprinkles on and off at the beach.
We climbed up the cliffs and got ice cream at a little store. Then we waited about an hour for a bus that arrived very late but still got us to Matiatia at the harbor for the 6:15 ferry back to Auckland. The sail back was beautiful and we took lots of pictures of the islands on the way and Auckland as we drew closer. We got back to the hotel around 7:30 after one of our favorite days of the trip.
January 21 (Wednesday)- Auckland to Flight Home
We set the alarm to wake up at 5AM to watch the Inauguration on CNN. Very moving. After breakfast around 8, Dick worked on photos in the room until 10 when we checked out of the hotel. He downloaded to the memory stick while we sat in the lobby.
Victoria Park Market in Auckland was much smaller than the one in Melbourne , but I got a cute baby bib and outfit and a T shirt for Dick. I emailed from a small hole-in-the-wall kiosk in there.
Then I joined Dick in the park and we walked down to the waterfront where there were yachts and boats for hire. We ate at a neat restaurant called Monsoon, then walked to the Sky Tower but no one was doing the bungee jump there. So we walked back to the hotel around 3. Our driver was early and told us there was an accident on the main road to the airport, so drove us through suburbs and got us to the airport in plenty of time for our flight at 7.
We sat near the back of the plane, surrounded by a large group of New Zealand students going on Rotary Club sponsored year abroad programs in Europe. I sat next to Tim who seemed more mature than some and was spending the next school year in France. To pass the time I watched Nights in Rodanthe and The Deal- a movie about making a film about Benjamin Disraeli and slept a bit.
Second January 21 (Wednesday)- Somewhere over the Pacific to New Hampshire
Breakfast was served, then I watched Bottle Shock about a wine tasting competition in France where California wine first beat the French wines. We were in Los Angeles around 10 and the airport stores were filled with Obama T shirts and magazines with him on the cover. I talked with a woman in an Obama shirt who was a community college professor and had done a birding trip with friends. Our luggage arrived but the digeridoo didn't. I wasn't allowed to carry it with me because it could be used as a weapon! We filled out the paperwork to get it delivered to Bob's by FedEx.
The flights to Charlotte and then Manchester went fine. We called Bob from Charlotte and he said all was fine and James (our cat) had been a joy to have. We dozed and I did puzzles and shared a Chinese meal while we waited for our last plane flight.
The trip to Manchester was a blur, but Bob was waiting when we got outside the security area in Manchester Airport and we were back to his house and in bed as quickly as we could make it. It was a great trip which only gets better in the retelling about it!