Where are Ron and Ellen?
New Zealand (Ron and Ellen), Fiji (Ron), 5 January - 9 March 2015
Ellen and Ron near Milford Sound, NZ, January 2015
Auckland, New Zealand
To see photos of Auckland, click on the thumbnail at the left.
Auckland report
To see photos of the Auckland Museum (Wearable Art Exhibit), click on the thumbnail at the left.
11 January 2015
Auckland, New ZealandDear Family and Friends,
Our flights from the US went smoothly, although our flight from Fiji to Auckland was delayed by four hours, so we had an eight hour layover there instead of four. Fiji Air was very nice, gave us all meal vouchers, and sent us to their business center so we could call the owner of our Auckland apartment to tell her we would be delayed. Because we had an 11 hour layover in Los Angeles, we'd expected to have to pick up our luggage, but they checked it all the way through, so during our wait time in Los Angeles we took a city bus from the airport to Santa Monica and spent several hours walking on their pedestrian shopping street and along the waterfront, then took the bus back to the airport - senior rate of 50 cents each in each direction! We arrived in New Zealand weary from all the travel, but jet lag has not been as bad as we thought it would be. Ron now has a cold and Ellen is flirting with one, most certainly caught on the plane trip, but we are hoping the gorgeous summer weather will make for speedy recovery.
We've had a lovely four days in Auckland, but it is incredibly hilly - built on ancient volcanic ridges and mounds dropping down steeply to what we assume are various ancient river beds, and all dropping down to harbor and bay. Our apartment is on the 6th floor, on a corner of the building, and we have spectacular sweeping views in two directions, one being out over the downtown and the waterfront and harbor/bay. We are two blocks from Ponsonby Road, which is Auckland's busiest and most diverse restaurant/cafe/bar area, with every imaginable type of restaurant, including several food courts - the food courts not being the conglomeration of chain restaurants that in the U.S., at least, appear in airports and malls, but more like a market, with small independent restaurants all sharing a single facility. I think there are more places we'd like to eat than we could try in multiple months. Ponsonby Rd is where we've gone for dinner each night, and have enjoyed wonderful Vietnamese beef soup (so good we went there twice), excellent fish and chips, and some unusual pizza (proscuitto and pear being our favorite of what we tried).
We've done a huge amount of walking (both of us have shin splints, now getting better, from all the walking on pavement!). Everything is downhill from our apartment, so we've learned to use the excellent bus system to get home - even if we are someplace that is on top of another hill, we'd have to go down and then up again.
Our first day we spent exploring the busy downtown area and the waterfront - lots and lots of boats and ferries of all sizes going in all different directions. The population, both local and tourist, is very diverse, and all seem very friendly and relaxed. We were in and out of phone stores checking out various options before deciding on which company to go with for our NZ sim cards and phone plans for the month, a process that was complicated by the fact that Ron's phone from home (a "refurbished" phone our carrier gave him when his original phone died) died the day after we got the sim cards. Today he bought a new phone and is now figuring out how it works.
Our second day we did some more exploring, and went to the Auckland Museum, which has a big permanent exhibit of Maori art and artifacts - huge and beautifully carved canoes, a carved meeting house, and many other wood carvings. Other highlights were an excellent exhibit on volcanoes in general and Auckland's volcanic field in particular, and the current special exhibit called WOW - the World of Wearable Art. That exhibit was indeed a WOW, with amazing creations of all sorts of materials (wood, leather, plastic, car parts) made into one-of-a-kind suits and dresses. They were on mannequins, but for the annual show (this was a gathering of "garments" from several years of shows) would be worn by real live models. They were fascinating and spectacular, but most were not something you would want to wear for any length of time!
Our third day we took a ferry across the harbor to Devonport, a mainly residential area with a nice park and some beaches facing the bay and the city. Many beautiful Edwardian houses along the waterfront. It reminded us a bit of Seattle. We enjoyed sitting and reading on a bench overlooking the water and the huge amount of boat activity - a sunny and quite breezy Saturday, so there were a lot of big and small sailboats zipping about. There were several used book shops there, and an intriguing free book swap in front of the almost completed new library, with a big red easy chair and a shelf full of books painted on the screen surrounding the construction, and an actual wooden glass-front cabinet between the painted shelf and chair with books for swapping - take one, leave one. (Photo to be posted when Ellen returns.)
Today we went to the Auckland Art Gallery to see their special exhibit, a light show, fascinating art installations using light in many different ways. We had our picnic in beautiful sunny Albert Park, one of the many parks that create green spaces all through the city.
Tomorrow we fly to Christchurch, where we will collect a rental car and set off (on the left side of the road!) for 13 days of exploration of the South Island, which everyone tells us is spectacular.
Love to all, Ellen and Ron Love to all,
Ellen and Ron
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Last updated: 9 February 2015
