This morning we were picked up at the hotel by a taxi, which took us to an industrial park near the airport where our motorhome (aka “campervan”) was waiting for us. We were happy to see how big it was, not just a converted van like we thought — it’s more like a small delivery truck outfitted for living. Plus Chris can stand up in it without bumping his head (well, if he takes off his shoes). The Wilderness Motorhomes folks welcomed us and instructed us on how to use the beast. 
Also their dog Georgia (!) made us feel comfortable, and vice versa.
It’s got a manual transmission, which was a surprise to Chris, ’cause he wasn’t expecting that. Of course we love manuals in our cars, but for this trip Chris was looking forward to the simple “go button / turn wheel” mode of driving. Ah well. More on the driving on the “wrong” side of the road later.
We had received a little keychain made by Bridget when we were in San Franscisco a few days ago and promptly applied it to the job!
Stopped off at Foodtown to get supplies first and then we commenced our drive! It started out on a highway proper (well, once we found the highway) but then became more of a jaunt down side roads in the countryside as we got a bit inadvertantly detoured. We’ll get the hang of this map reading thing sooner or later. Actually, we’re beginning to think that except for right in the cities, there are no limited-access highways like we have in the US and Europe, rather just fast rural roads. The speed limit is 100 kph (60 mph) which is plenty fast for the van. Lots of rolling hills, cows, sheep, farmland and little towns. Lots of corrugated metal art and signage here for some reason.
So we drove from Auckland, down through the farmlands around Hamilton and Cambridge, and ended up at Rotorua. Stopped for fish and chips at a windblown cafe on the side of the road. It felt like we were climbing a gentle slope for an hour as we approached Rotorua, and later we learned that the Rotorua region (a large town and surrounding countryside) is actually the caldera of a huge ancient volcano. The low mountains surrounding us on all sides are the rim of gigantic crater.
In Rotorua we went to the eeeexcellent regional museum, which had several different exhibitions, on the old mud baths “health cure” enterprize that operated there, on the Maori culture, 
on historical European artist interprations of the culture and the clash between the two. Another great NZ museum.
Outside, the museum was sited on the shores of Lake Rotorua, specifically adjacent to Sulphur Bay, so named for the sulphurous springs that rise out of the ground there. Oh what a mighty stench! 
We walked right out onto the beach and observed the bubbling and steaming and wrinkling of our noses.
Sharon is obsessing at bit about the birds and wildlife. 
Here’s a Pukeko running away as Sharon stalked it at the museum. It’s one of the few birds that’s not endangered here. Centuries ago the poor NZ birds were all flightless because they had no predators. Then the Brits arrived and decided to bring in sport animals that started eating all the indigenous flora and fauna. We found out that NZ has hedgehogs and wallabies (bonus animals!). Again, imported “accidently” from other countries, much like the rabbits, stoats, snakes, cats and Australian possums used to kill off the “pest” animals that the Brits let overrun the country.
Our long day ended at a Belgian bar with a full meal and some great Belgian beer. We drove to our home for the night, the Redwoods Holiday Park. Our first visit to a motor park and it’s a bit odd. It’s a cozy spot with roads and spots to pull in off onto grassy areas with power and water hookups. 
Our van is amazingly appointed. TV, dvd/cd player, shower/toilet, gas cook top, small oven and a sitting area/dining table in the back that converts to a bed at night. Just the right size for short little Sharon, a bit cramped for Chris. He’s sleeping a bit diagonally.
We started today with a trip to the Auckland Domain (domain being a general term for “park” here), which appears to be the largest park in the city. 
After passing through a nice little duck pond area and a fantastic greenhouse complex (with “fernery”), we ended up at the 
Back at the hotel, Chris got online and was able to figure out the Auckland bus system sufficiently so that we could get to Mount Eden. These trips … you quickly become so familiar with the transit system, and so dependent on it; it’s a real shame that Atlanta recently shut down its own Tourist Loop bus. Anyway, a short bus ride and we were at the base of Mount Eden, and after some huffing up a trail, we were at the top, along with all the people who had driven up. Mount Eden is an old dormant volcano, practically in the middle of Auckland, and in the huge crater at the peak were … five head of cattle. Also at the bottom along with the cows was the equivalent of farmland graffiti; cowpies spelling out the names of people who’d managed to collect them and arrange them way down there. By this time the skies had cleared and we had late afternoon sunshine for the first time, so it made for some spectacular views up there.
Then we headed back into downtown and wandered through Albert Park, where the annual Lantern Festival was in full swing. 
Chinese performances, chinese food, chinese trinkets, and huge throngs of people. There was also a symphony performance in the main park and we watched the fireworks from our hotel balcony.
Outside, there was a constant, light rain driven by some serious winds. Back in Atlanta, this is the kind of driven rain we only get when the remnants of a hurricane come through. And while we eventually learned that this was indeed rather abnormally bad weather for Auckland summer, the locals didn’t seem that concerned about it, and the streets of downtown Auckland were bustling with a Saturday shopping crowd, really as if the weather was of no concern. Sharon got contact lenses especially for this trip and that was a great idea since we were wet most of the day.
Auckland’s was no comparison to Tokyo’s, of course, but still wondrous and afforded plenty of opportunities for dropping our jaws at the strange creatures that were being presented to us on ice.
Our local friend Fiona met up with us at the hotel restaurant for an early dinner. Fiona is the sister of our neighbor in ATL and works for Air New Zealand. We had a nice long chat about all the places we are going to, should be going to and wish we had time to go to. We finally collapsed into bed for a long night of sleep.
Up at 5am to get onto an early ATL to SFO flight. It seems like the whole country had cloud cover, since we didn’t see the ground once, save for a few peaks at the Rocky Mountains and plateaus in Utah (pictured).
airport and we headed over to the Coyote Point wildlife study center near the airport (in Burlingame) and had a great time looking at CA animals and hordes of school children. Then we settled into a nearby cafe for an afternoon of eating, drinking coffee and sitting around and chatting. It was great to see them all even though it was just for a few hours.
Got on the long-haul airplane at 6:30pm (SFO time, 9:30pm ATL time) and took off in the dark over the Pacific ocean. There was a full moon a good part of the flight. The aircraft was a nice newish Boeing 777, which still had us crammed in too tight but at least gave every passenger his/her own independent movie playback system, with a library of hundred of movies and TV shows. Chris got through Into The Wild and Michael Clayton, and Sharon squandered the opportunity by watching Flight of the Conchords episodes that she had just seen last week. (Sharon says: I also watched a Japanese game show of a crane game competition with a Lolita girl in pink against 3 others picking up kawaii plush toys. Also watched several Kiwi cooking shows; I know everyone loves whitebait sandwiches, but I just don’t think I will.) The flight also had decent food and not too many squawling children.
It’s here! On Thursday we leave for our long-planned trip to New Zealand. It has been on our minds for a couple years, and we’ve been focused on the detail planning now for months.
Then it’ll be about 8 days working our way around the South Island; from Picton we’ll head down to Christchurch on the east coast, and from there we’ll either work our way in a clockwise loop (continuing down the east coast) or counterclockwise (crossing inland). We haven’t decided yet.
In 26 years of following the program, I’ve never actually seen a launch. Back in high school, I think the summer after we graduated, my friend Steve Krill and I flew down to Florida (on People Express!), stayed at his aunt’s vacant condo in Jupiter FL, and intended to drive up to KSC the next morning to see the launch. We overslept! We woke up 30 minutes before launch, jumped in the car and started driving, and 2 minutes before launch we steered over to the beach and watched from afar, still about 30 miles away.
Alas, I couldn’t get Sharon in so she’d be back at the KSC Visitors Center with the unwashed masses, about 8 miles away. The first photo shown here is of the big countdown clock that you see on TV — that’s where I would see the launch from, and I took that photo of the clock up close (note the annoyed heron in the background, lower right corner).
Which turned into 2 days, and then 3. NASA came up with a justification for attempting again on Sunday, but that failed too with the same problem. And so the whole thing was scrubbed for the month. As I type this, a week later, NASA believes they’ve found the problem and they’re getting ready to try to launch again starting on Jan 10th. I don’t think I’m going to be able to get back down there for that attempt, but I’ll admit that I’ve been thinking “an 8 hour drive isn’t so hard, I can zip down and zip back, and only miss a day or so of work, or none at all if it’s on the weekend!” I dunno … it’s so hard to catch up again after being out of town …
So, back to the Florida trip just completed, we made the best of it and did a couple touristy things at Kennedy and then visited Sharon’s parents. At Kennedy we did the Up Close tour, which is a step up from the basic bus tour that comes with KSC admission, and takes you on a two-hour guided tour of several places: