New Zealand, here we come!

I’m having to create a trip report three and a half years after the fact. I had kept a day-by-day journal of this trip that I religiously wrote in every day, only to forget it on the plane home. Then when Fred hired a graphic designer to update his website, the blog written about the trip was deleted by accident. Now that we’re planning our 4^th trip to New Zealand, I thought I should rewrite the report, as best as I can. Obviously, many details will be missing. I’m using my failing memory and our pictures to guide me.

Fred had accrued many United miles and he proposed we take a trip to Australia and New Zealand. It seemed like any time I had talked to someone about a similar trip, they spoke of how much they loved New Zealand and really didn’t spend enough time there. So, New Zealand it was! Because we were flying on miles, we had to route ourselves to connect in Sydney and arrive in Auckland. So I planned our two weeks adventure on the North Island. Fred had also previously rock-climbed in Australia and he and his climbing buddy rented a campervan, which sounded like fun. So we now had a basic plan.

I did a little bit of research on New Zealand guidebooks and one was recently published and sounded very much like it focused on the campervan accessible and non-touristy places of North Island. It was Scott Cook’s first New Zealand-based book, NZ Frenzy. More research led us to reserve a campervan with New Zealand Frontiers, a campervan outfit with high praise, located in Auckland. I also started skimming the TripAdvisor forums.

And so our adventure began.

I can’t really remember all that much about our flight out. Maybe that’s good, and due to everything going well. We were booked in business class on United from SFO to Sydney. The flight left late at night and the seats folded flat. I slept well, which I can’t say enough about. I suppose the transfer in Sydney was uneventful, because at this late date, I don’t remember much about it. The bio-security there was pretty strict and you couldn’t bring foods from the plane through the airport. Then we transferred to Air New Zealand for our flight to Auckland.

We took the shuttle to the Grand Chancellor, a hotel that Kenrick at New Zealand Frontiers, had recommended. We walked around the area near the hotel, geocaching, and then went back to the hotel’s dining room for dinner. We really only had appetite enough for a couple of appetizers and then headed to bed.

The Adventure Continues>>>