Arrived in New Zealand

The flight made good time from Sydney to Auckland, and the automated immigration/passport check worked brilliantly, as it had in Australia. However all the time gained was immediately lost because of the delay in the baggage arrival. Finally got a taxi and sat back for the drive to Innes and Rita’s house and our first introduction to the cost of living in New Zealand. $130 for the taxi! After arriving at 2am it was good to get a good nights sleep…not so good to realise we had forgotten to adjust time from Sydney to Auckland and what we thought was a reasonable 9am getting up was really 11am! So nice to see Innes and Rita after so long – It was a Friday and Ines was working from home so he drove us up Beach Road for orientation, which goes for miles along the shore! The beach is only 100 yds from the house and the view from the living room over the bay is to die for!
In the afternoon Innes had a meeting and the impetuous lad let us borrow their Golf GTI to do some exploring! As an aside, this was a great fun car to drive, very sporty and exhilarating when the power kicks in. We checked out the peninsula a little and Randi was happy because we found a Starbucks in Milford. Innes and Rita were horrified – if there are so many good local coffee shops, why are you going to Starbucks?

Coastal defences at Hauraki Gulf Maritime Park. Built in fear of Russian intentions but never used

View of Auckland from the maritime park

Randi capturing the view

Sailboat crawling around the headland

In the evening we went to ‘Salt’ restaurant 50 yds down from their house. A chic little place with very good food and an enticing wine list. It was clear that Innes and Rita were regulars!. We enjoyed Fickle Mistress Pinot Noir from Central Otago This first timeout for dinner I was blindsided and Innes had paid the bill before I even realised it…