Wednesday – Rotorua / Lake Taupo homer, May 31, 2006June 16, 2006 We left Auckland early Wednesday morning for a 4 hour drive down to Lake Taupo. We stopped in Rotorua along the way and visited various sites. You can view a picture here of us in the Gondola in Rotorua ( enter code SKRT65312540 ) – spectacular view of the lake… Continue Reading
Tuesday Visit – still in Auckland homer, May 30, 2006June 16, 2006 On Tuesday, our plan was to visit Rainbow’s End and let the kids have fun riding all the amusements. Unfortunately, we found out that the park operates on a “schedule” which means that only certain rides are open at certain times. The problem compounded itself even more by the fact… Continue Reading
Monday Visit homer, May 30, 2006June 16, 2006 After plopping down $90 NZD for breakfast (more on this later) at our Hotel, we headed down to the harbour to take a ferry out to Rangitoto Island. This island is an old volcano that erupted a few hundred years ago and created the “new” island. The ferry ride was… Continue Reading
Sunday Visit in Auckland homer, May 29, 2006June 16, 2006 After resting at the hotel and getting a bit refreshed, we proceeded to do a “walkabout.” We headed to Albert Park where I took some amazing shots for the floral growing here during the “winter”. I’ve posted some pics at https://sahifu.net/pac80 After the park visit, we headed off to Sky… Continue Reading
Hotel Check in homer, May 28, 2006June 3, 2006 We arrived way to early for most hotels to allow this early a check in but we decided to give it a shot. Much to our surprise, the hotel staff (extremely friendly) let us check in early after hearing of our grueling 18 hour travel ordeal. The staff is warm,… Continue Reading
Arrived in Auckland homer, May 28, 2006 We arrived in Auckland on Sunday, May 28 at around 7:00 a.m. We proceeded off the aircraft, through customs (fairly easy) then straight to the car rental place where our first nightmare began! After REPEATEDLY calling our credit card company, Capital One about our planned trip to New Zealand and… Continue Reading
Time Travel homer, May 27, 2006May 29, 2006 We are between two days, the flight from Houston to LAX was pretty smooth except the 1.5 hour delay leaving Houston. We landed at LAX with just enough time to take a primative bus from one terminal to terminal 2 where our Air New Zealand flight was getting ready to… Continue Reading
Departure! homer, May 26, 2006May 28, 2006 We left Houston an hour and a half late after quite an eventul week. I had a great personal loss on Tuesday that consumed a great deal of time energy and emotion from me these past few days and I thought that this trip might not have happened but life… Continue Reading
Tools of the Trade homer, May 22, 2006May 28, 2006 With only a few days before our trip, I wanted to run down some of the tools we used to plan our trip to New Zealand. The most useful site was the official New Zealand Tourism website. One of the biggest issues to overcome was selecting the right hotels. Unfortunately… Continue Reading
Credit Cards & Fees homer, May 17, 2006May 17, 2006 In planning our trip to New Zealand, we wanted to make sure we didn’t end up with any “hidden” fees or charges on our credit cards which we would use for the bulk of our trip. We called up the following banks to inquire about their fees for international transactions…. Continue Reading