Arrival in Auckland

Monday, 19 July, 2004 by Donna V. Whitmore

Our group had an early breakfast and headed back to the airport for our flight to Auckland. The flight was great with wonderful, animated flight attendants!

At the airport in Auckland, we met Donna and Glen, who came to escort us to New Plymouth in the south of New Zealand, five hours away, to be exact, where they are residents. Glen has a rock shop in New Plymouth and Donna is a professor at Witt University, our host on this leg of the trip.

We headed for the Kiwi International Hotel to spend the night. After settling into our rooms, we drove in to Auckland for an evening of sightseeing and dinner, which was spectacular! We found an Italian restaurant, Vivace, which was beautiful, architecturally, and had some of the best food I have ever eaten! Cheryl took lots of pictures of the rooms, the bar, the light fixtures, the wine-tasting room, the fireplace, the angular tables, the food and even the tableware! It was a remarkable place! I hope I can someday return.

Donna and Glen are both great people - very congenial, full of information and a willingness to share.

It is colder here, but we expected that. Auckland is very different from Sydney - it is more spread out and though we window-shopped a lot, most of the shops were closed at 9:00 at night.

Our dinner group and the rest of the gang met back at the vehicles and left for the hotel for a good night's sleep before heading south the next morning.