It's Tuesday here.  OK, OK.  I goofed off and didn't get it done last night.  So you get two today.

First, yesterday the 29th here.  A pretty laid
back day.  In the morning, we gathered at the FF clubhouse (which they share with a dog training organization) for some special entertainment.  A group of Maori singers performed for us.  Lots of songs with some beautiful harmony.  And a large and imposing man who did all those Maori grunts, shouts, and the "sticking out of the tongue" thing.  We all loved it.  Then they joined the group for mid-morning tea. Or coffee.  And cookies and cakes.  Don't they realize just it is to resist that stuff?  I'll have to buy two seats to get back home at this rate.  But it was fun, and we had some very good conversations with the Maori group.  And these folks were the real deal; not just some people pretending to be Maoris.









We broke up and went our separate ways.  Sue took us to a lovely city park which has a lake and a Winter Garden.  Just the place for early spring.  The sun was out today, but it's still pretty breezy and chilly.  Had lunch at a cafe on the grounds and then spent some time in the winter garden.  Just like being in the tropics, away from the chilling breeze.  And ever so colorful!

Next, we head toward the coast and the area where Sue grew up.  We stop to visit her friend Thelma, who lives in a 120-year-old house.  It looks like a small cottage from the front, but we find that it stretches way back; a wide central hallway with rooms to either
side.  Thelma, as it turns out, is an avid gardener.  She even has an large avocado tree, grown from a seed, which produces lots of avocados.  We'd been told that such a tree wouldn't produce fruit.  Seems they were wrong.  We found that we really liked her chickens and doves.  But we liked them best at her house.

Next day.  Today.  We gather at the "clubhouse" and proceed to the Taranaki area.  We make a stop at a cute little historic village.  Not exactly a good presentation, as things were somewhat shoe-horned in.  But of interest, nonetheless.  Lunch at Halbard Gardens - most of the time was spent eating or listening to our driver, FF member, and guide Laurie explain the gardens and the Taranaki area.  Lots of rhododendrons, azaleas and such.  Then on our way to the mountain itself.  At the base visitors center, we have a great view of the mountain.  Reminds us a bit of:  Mt Rainier, or Mt. Fuji.

Then we take a short and damp trek to a vantage point to see a beautiful waterfall, Dawson Falls. Although it's a bright sunny day, the ground and plants are wet from the spray of the falls.  Very thick foliage.  Reminds David of the Olympic rain forest.






On the way home, we stop at a "Possum and Merino" shop.  Yes, possums.  But the New Zealand possums are not nearly as ugly as ours in the U.S.  They hire people to hunt and trap the little beasties, which are too numerous in NZ.  Then they tan the skins to make a very light and supple leather.  The fur is combined with merino wool to make a very soft fabric.  Yep, Joy found just the right item.  Very pretty.  Fortunately, she didn't buy the wierd Davy Crockett hat:

Then we wound our way home through beautiful views of farmland, sheep, lots of sheep, cows, lots of cows, and distant views of the ocean here and there.

Sunday - We have finally reached the point where we awoke in the same city where we went to sleep.  As we said, we managed to last until about 6:30 PM and then it was "lights out".  The concern was that on Sunday (today), New Zealand goes to daylight savings time, so we lose and hour.  And we discover that we have no alarm clock.  So Joy sets the iPad, and David sets his watch and sleeps fretfully.  We have no intention of missing the bus to the airport in the morning.

Up early today.  Might as well.  We have breakfast and even have time to use Facetime to chat with Mary and Noah.  And slightly with Laura.  Good to see them, and kind of reassure the youngest (Noah) that we are around.

Packed up our bags and headed to the bus stop.  It was a little rainy overnight, but cleared some this morning.  Just for us.  The bus stop is about 4-5 blocks away, mostly downhill, so the trek was easy.  It's a special city bus that serves the airport and downtown.  We got there in plenty of time.  We really like the bus facilities and drivers.  Very nice and well-informed.  And about 1/5 of the cost of a taxi.

Airport check-in was pretty easy.  No security checks for domestic flights.  Our flight was a 20-passenger Beech prop plane.  Nice ride except for the last 10 minutes or so.  Arrived in Wanganui airport (?) which was misty and blustery.  Met our hostess, Sue and next thing we know, we're at her house.  Very comfortable.  We really like Sue.

Wanganui is a small town in the southern part of the North Island.   On the coast.  This afternoon we just chilled, as we're both still a bit tired.  Tonight we meet everyone else at dinner.

How 'bout this Kiwi Cake?

 We had a wonderful evening.  Ambassadors from all over for this exchange - Japan, Taiwan, US - Virginia, Oregon, Washington DC, and of course us.  Plus others - we still     have more to meet.

Day two.  Or is it three?  We left on the 25th and arrived at Auckland on the 27th.  So we think, just exactly happened to Friday?  Never even saw one minute of it.  Just gone.  Think about it.  Seems just a little weird.

We arrived in Auckland at about 5:30 AM.  Way too early.  But here we are.  Daylight dawned with temps in the upper 50's or low 60's.  After all the customs stuff we grabbed a cab to get to our Air BnB stay for the day.  Note:  do NOT use taxis in Auckland.  Hideously expensive.  Not to mention that our Bnb host indicated that the driver had probably jacked up the price.  No wonder you don't tip them.

Anyway, our Air BnB host, Trevor, kindly met us at the early hour (about 6:30 AM).  He and Deb are very nice.  And his place has quite a view:

View from Trevor's House - Harbor in distance

  Of course, we gave up on a taxi.  Trevor gave us instructions to take the city bus, which was only a couple of blocks away.  With the help of the driver, we figured out how to get close to our destination, the conference hotel in the downtown.  Just a bit of walking, mostly downhill.  It seems that hills are a definite part of this city.  Saturday morning.  Very quiet downtown.  Took a couple of snaps;

We wandered around downtown, checked out the location of the next BnB place that is smack downtown.  About this time, we were beginning to wilt - too little sleep - so we located the transport center and managed to figure out just how to get back to where we started.  And thanks to a number of people along the way who volunteered help.

Back at the house, and a nice surprise.  Trevor and Deb left us a nice bottle of NZ wine to relax this evening.  Should really help sleep to come.  We have to take care tomorrow for the time.  Turns out that tomorrow NZ changes to daylight saving time.  And we have to get to our transit spot by 8:00 AM.  We'll make it work.

First impressions:  Air BnB holdings are infinitely better than our first experience.  Auckland seems a bit dowdy.  Not dirty, exactly, but not really "dressed for the ball".  But the people we've met more than make up for that.  David observed that the buildings in the city reminded him of Australia - kind of old time colonial.  Very new modern buildings (check the pictures above) alongside those old turn-of-the-century (the 19th - 20th century) dowagers.  All in all, we are really looking forward to seeing more of this city in a couple of weeks, and also our next stop:  Wanganui.

We, that is my wife and I, are on the road again.  This time three weeks to New Zealand.  You see, we belong to a travel organization called "Friendship Force International".  They are having a world conference there and it seems to be a good excuse to visit.  We just left this morning from Nebraska, so we are eagerly (sic!) looking forward to just about an entire day of travel.

The way Friendship Force works is through what they call exchanges.  These are actually just groups of people who travel to cities throughout the world and stay up to a week at a time with FF host families.  Sometimes the exchange is organized by a local club, and other times, like this one, destination clubs open the exchange to anyone who wants to go.  We end up getting to know local people, especially our home hosts, and we find that friendships form easily.  Anyway, if you want some good professionally developed explanations, try visiting the Friendship Force website.

Ah, back to the blog.  Anyway, I tried this once before when we had an exchange to Japan.  Gave each member of our traveling group a day to write up.  You know, lots of tablets and such.  And me with my monster laptop.  At least it's a monster compared with iPads and the like.  Turns out that there was a flaw in the ointment.  It seems that WiFi is not always available.  Ah!  Says I.  Then just copy your stuff to a thumb drive.  Another fly (it's getting to be sort of like what you find around old fish) - most tablets don't have standard USB connectivity - especially the iPad.  So I got hard copy, very late e-mails (their hosts didn't have WiFi connections, some no computer at all.  So this time, I think it's me that will be doing the typing.  By the way, Apple does make a nice dongle to convert the Apple-specific port to a standard USB port.  And yes, I know, Microsoft makes a tablet that is supposed to have standard USB connection.  But they are terribly uncommon.

Enough of the blather.  At this point, we are in the San Francisco Airport awaiting our time to board the flight to Auckland.  It's been a good ride so far.  United Airlines in the U.S. and they seem to be far more professional and personable that in the old days.  Thanks to them.  The gate agent in Denver needed to free up some overhead space, and went so far as to check our two carry-ons through to Auckland at no charge (we had already checked our other two).  This makes wandering the airport much more comfortable.  Next, we get to sample Kiwi hospitality on our Air New Zealand flight.

More later.  We'll lose two days across the date line, so don't look for anything tomorrow.

Let's see just how dedicated and responsible I'll be.