We left LAX on Feb 13th and landed on the morning of Feb 15th in Auckland. February 14th, Valentines Day simply vanished for us.
It took forever to get through the bio-inspection at the Auckland airport. The New Zealanders are serious about keeping out contaminating species. I offered to let him inspect our hiking boots and backpacks, but the officer was content to let us through.
We picked up our rental car from Alamo - a yellowish-colored Yaris Cross. Driving on the wrong side of the road, of course. Fortunately, I never got confused and turned into the wrong lane during our entire trip. However, for the first several days, I kept turning on the windshield wipers when I meant to activate the turn signal. The car was an automatic, which surprised me a bit. On all previous overseas trips, we have always been given a manual transmission. On our previous visit to New Zealand, I was shifting with my left hand.
It was too late to catch the last ferry to Rangitoto island, so we decided instead to visit the Auckland Botanical Gardens.
The Botanical Gardens are not far from the airport, so it wasn't hard to navigate to them. We spent several hours walking along the garden paths. There is a sprinkling of sculptures around the grounds; I think we spent more time identifying the various pieces of art rather than studying all the plants.
Our hotel was the TravelLodge on the Auckland waterfront. We had a seventh floor room looking south, we could see Auckland's famous landmark, the Sky Tower. For dinner we went out for a pizza - Hawaiian, of course, Melanie's favorite. That night we learned that they illuminate the Sky Tower with red lights.
