We made it to Auckland!

 After 13 hours in the plane, we landed safe and sound in Auckland!   I'm not sure how rested some of the delegates were... 

We met our delegation manager, Courtney, and our coach driver, Rob.  Rob looks like a true Kiwi...his sunglasses, his hat, his accent for sure!  We drove through the city of Auckland....the huge city of 1.4 million (and New Zealand only has 4.3 million!).  We headed to the Auckland War Memorial...where we were divided into 5 groups and had a docent lead us through...with a little time at the end on our own.

 Off to lunch and some delicious pasta or pizza.... so good!!!
Kirsten had the honor of skipping her actual birthday!  Her birthday is July 4...and since we departed on July 3...and landed on July 5th, well, Kirsten missed her birthday.  We celebrated anyway, on July 5th, by singing Happy Birthday...

We did some more touring of the city going up to ... was it Mt. Victoria?  As you can see, we had beautiful views of the city of Auckland.  It was a bit winding to get there...and then very windy!

We drove to Matamata, commonly called Hobbitown, where they filmed...guess what?  We took pictures of Gollum... and sat in a hobbit chair and took pictures.... all the Lord of the Ring movies were made there....along with the Last Samurai (Tom Cruise) and the Narnia series.   

We went to an animal wildlife santuary in Rotorua...seeing live kiwis running around... and Rainbow trout introduced to New Zealand from California!   We had a private tour of the sanctuary... short but great!

Now here we are at our hotel...room checks have been made...we've tucked your kids in for their first night in NZ...and some were already snoring by the time we got there. 

No photos because I only have 20 minutes to be online and it's probably about up!  Tomorrow, I think we'll be without electricity or for sure without internet... will be with the Maoris! 

It's cold...and it's gorgeous...and it's perfectly Ok since we're here in New Zealand!