In the morning we were pleased to learn that whatever package we had bought included breakfast every day, and for some reason we could get whatever we wanted no matter the price. I’ll take it… We headed north up the North Island over the bay bridge and realized that basically every NZ highway is a scenic one. MK stopped quite often to take pictures after reading a photography book on the plane. You have him to thank for all these great pictures. The first beach we stopped at was called Waiwera. It was a small fishing village with beautiful water and shells everywhere.

We went to an enormous museum as the first planned activity on our trip. It was the museum of the Kauri tree (pronounced like Cody) that was used by the Maori, then by the European settlers due to it’s extreme size and color, and it also leaks a sap that is a gum used to make many different things. They took down so many of the trees that are now protected. There are even swamps of these trees that are excavated that survived under ground for thousands of years.

We drove through Ruawai and stopped at a local cafe for some local coffee (MK) and beer (Me) and a panini, the most common food item, no matter what ‘type’ of restaurant you are in, they will grill you a sandwich, in the entire country. We headed north again through the forest that was just expansive and breath taking. The roads were so windy we were crawling at a snail’s pace, but it was fine because we could see so much more.

We made it up to Omapere and Opononi where we were staying and stopped in many hill top view points to see the coast, the cove, the beach across the water from us, and the forest behind us. Our hotel had a indoor/outdoor porch and view of the pier and water. We had a small dinner, dressed up in our warmest, played a round of pool to kill some time, and met up with a group for our Forest Walk.

Two Maori men, Joe and Gray, took us and a group totaling about 15 through the forest to see Tane Mahuta (169 ft high, 45 ft wide), the god of the forest, and Te Matua Ngahere (59 ft wide), the father of the forest. They are the two largest and oldest Kauri trees in NZ. The hike was beautiful and took about 4 hours. They gave us hot chocolate and sang Maori songs about the history of the trees and how important they are in the culture. It was a beautiful night.

The guides were really nice and we had a beer with them back at the hotel and talked about the Dept. of Conservation and the acts that they are working on. They are replanting Kauri trees and doing these tours on their own to educate tourists on the forest and their culture.

We were at the airport so long it felt like we would never get to NZ. There was a mix up of flights and check in spots etc. etc. We went from SFO to LAX, on United, the worst airline I’ve ever seen. We finally made it on the Air NZ plane and were all excited until we realized we were sitting for 12 hours straight on this thing. It was huge, I’d never been on a two story plane before. They give you your own TV for movies and music and games. I watched three movies (The Illusionist was pretty good) and listened to music. MK was able to sleep by his nice little window, I on the other hand was in the middle with a pregnant lady on the other side of me. I’m pretty sure she thought I was nuts, when I couldn’t get comfortable after they served our dinner I chugged three complimentary glasses of wine, and put my jacket on the tray table and slept sitting forward on that. Whatever works! We woke up in time for breakfast and got to see the sunrise as we landed which was pretty amazing.
We were supposed to get in at about 6am but were pretty late, arriving at about 9. We got our rental car paperwork, our vouchers for the trip, our luggage, and walked out to the car. Here’s a picture of the car, it is burnt orange 🙂

*Hook ’em!*

I walked to the right side, saw the steering wheel, and moved to the left side, where MK was trying to get in, going “oh, yeah, that.” MK started the car and, it started to rain.
We were pretty worried because even though it’s summer there, we’d heard all about how rain can ruin your entire trip.

We fought over the map the entire way into Auckland, about a twenty minute drive, until we realized they gave us two different routes to take and we had done about half of each…but we eventually made it to our hotel. I learned that I apparently do not know how to read maps, especially ones with roundabouts on them. *sigh*
We immediately showered and took a little nap. It stopped raining by when we got up. There is gambling in NZ, but it was a pretty weak little place called Sky City. It’s the tall tower in that picture up there. I mention this as a tip: apparently casinos give good exchange rates hoping that you will gamble. So we went to get some money and ended up eating some lunch there. We were pretty disappointed by the food. Also, there is a Goods and Services tax, which means you don’t tip, which means you get horrible service.

Auckland is on the water so we wandered down a few piers and looked around. We found a bus that drives a scenic route all around the far parts of the city and took that in a circle, and when we got off bought some NZ wine and food to cook in our hotel for dinner. We grabbed the car and drove to a place called Cromwell Park, a very high lookout to the city the top of which was called One Tree Mountain. It was hilariously windy, but full of beautiful flowers, trees, cows, and sheep. We toured the city and shops along the way home and were astounded by how expensive everything was, even considering the exchange rate. My hiking boots here were $64, there they were NZ$276, or US$180.
Overall, it was a great day to have finally gotten there and all that, but I was anxiously looking forward to our driving to see more of the countryside and events we had planned.