Week One in Kiwi Nation...

Already, we can’t keep up to our “posting once a week” promise. We have been very busy getting settled and getting used to the Kiwi way. It can be quite different at times; some things are even the smallest of things that we would have never expected to be so different. We arrived in Auckland on Nov 5 at 0700 hrs NZ time. We had an excellent flight and couldn’t get over the amazing service we had aboard Air NZ….cannot even be compared to WestJet, let alone Air Canada! We’ve spent the last 7 days in Auckland and are staying with some great people – Judy and Steve Brown. We got their contact through our parents’ friends and emailed them. They have been so hospitable and have been spoiling us! They picked us up from the dive we stayed in the first night and have been lending us their car for the time we are here. We are still getting used to driving on the left hand side of the road! It’s been exciting, to say the least…especially driving a manual car! We are still wondering how we will ever be able to repay Judy and Steve...they have been absolutely amazing!

We saw quite a lot of Auckland and spent a few days touring around the city. It's very spread out, with many nice beaaches and marinas. We spent a couple of days in the "Bay of Islands", which was about a four hour drive north of Auckland. It was a hard drive on narrow, hilly and windy roads...not to mention the speed limit of 100km/hr with logging trucks flying towards you! In Canada, the speed limit wouldn't be more than 60-70km/hr on the same roads. We stayed in a small beach town called Paihia and had a great time walking around the town, beach and on a boat cruise that took us through the islands and through the world famous "Hole in the Rock". We also saw tons of dolphins as they swam right up to our boat! It was a great way to see the islands. We returned to Auckland to get organized before taking off on our journey towards Wellington. After a nice evening with Judy and Steve, we packed up and hit the road this morning in our rental car. We had looked into buying a car, which we could have easily done, but we were told it's not necessary in Wellington and we can probably still keep the cost down with a rental every now and again.



After a 2.5 hour drive from Auckland, we arrived at the "Waitomo Caves". This was amazing! We went underground in deep limerock caves that are lit up by glowworms. There are thousands of tiny blue dots on the ceiling and walls of the caves. We took a small boat through the caves in complete darkness and silence. It was a really neat experience and one that we probably won't find again in other countries. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos in the caves. After Waitomo, we continued on to Rotorua - NZ's geothermal "hotspot". We have just arrived and took advantage of the free wireless in our little hotel (it hasn't been as accessible as we thought). From what we have seen, Rotorua looks promising and we are looking forward to exploring more tomorrow. The one problem...it smells like rotten eggs from the sulphur.



After we do some touring around Rotorua tomorrow, we plan to visit Lake Taupo, and maybe stay the night in Napier, which is one of NZ's many wine territories....we are certainly enjoying the $7 bottles of wine!

All in all, we are really enjoying our time in NZ so far. It is an absolutely beautiful country and we can't wait to see a whole lot more of it!