What a trip

1 What a trip

Stef and I left Anchorage on a Tuesday, and arrived in Aukland, New Zealand, on a Thursday.  It was a very long day, that seems to be three days.  We lost something somewhere.  Befuddled as we were, we got a shuttle, got checked into the hotel, took a walk, had a bite to eat and were asleep by 6 p.m.  It was exhausting.

We got up on Friday, March 10, and took the shuttle back to the airport, this time to get a car.  It would be a test as they drive on the left-hand side of the road here.  What would make it even more challenging is that there are roundabouts, quite frequently.  I was glad to see the vehicle already had some dings in it … so we obviously aren’t the first people to take it that aren’t native to this country.

As we left the car place we tried to set up the GPS.  It only spoke Japanese, so we returned only to find out that apparently you cannot change the language to English as these cars come directly from Japan.  What?  Seems odd.

First stop would be Butterfly Creek, that was located only a minute away from the airport.  There were free-flying butterflies, that were beautiful. 

New Zealand has 25 species of butterflies.

We were fortunate enough to see quite a variety of butterflies.

I think this one was my favorite.

Many were eating from fruit that was set about for them, others had landed on trees and bushes, and still others would fly and land on you. 

This lady had one land on her glasses and it seemed content there for quite a few moments.

Stef had this one hitch a ride for quite a while as we wandered through the butterfly exhibit.

It was beautiful, and quite relaxing to watch them, although there were a million kids there on some type of field trip.  Of course.  I immediately tripped over one of the little guys, but held my tongue.

There was a small aquarium with some beautiful fish.

And some cool little birds.



Cotton-top tamarins were cool-looking little monkeys.  These are only found in the rainforests of Northwestern Colombia, although there are about 20 species of tamarins.

There were also some cool little lizards.

Other points of interest were two saltwater crocodiles.  Goldie and Scar.  Goldie was out where you could see her, but the other that seemed larger, was right below the boardwalk, perhaps waiting for the walkway to rot away and provide breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There were some tasty little morsels on the walkway.

Goldie was waiting ... waiting ... waiting.  Don't let the sleepy look fool you.  Although a large croc can survive easily on one good meal for a month, would you want to take a chance?  Besides, a 4.5 meter long croc can bite with 45 times more force than a human and more than six times harder than a great white shark.

We quickly bypassed the cockroaches and spiders exhibit. 

There’s a dinosaur exhibit, and we walked around it, as there are a lot of replicas with moving parts. 

The dinosaurs were fun but more for the little ones.

Although I certainly couldn't resist hopping in a broken dinosaur egg shell.

On our way to the petting zoo we found the American crocodiles and it was feeding time.  The three of them were heading to the food trough.  I sure wouldn't have wanted to get in their way.

There was also a farm area and petting zoo.

King or queen of the hill.

I saw my first wallaby.  What a cute little creature.

This young one was quite stylish, and was not the one I'd tripped over.

This goat sure did love her apples, and was willing to step up to get it.

We even rode the little train. 

It was all fun, but the butterflies were the main attraction and what we enjoyed most.

Then it was time to head to our hotel for the next few nights.  

All I can say is it’s a good thing Stef had bought data so we had a GPS at hand.  It earned its keep on the very first drive into the heart of Aukland.

Somehow we found the hotel.  We even drove on a real road, a motorway.  And onto the streets of downtown.  We were on Queen Street … Yay!!!  There are all kinds of names here that we recognize although I’d never be able to afford to go in some of the stores … Dior, Prada, Louis Vuitton. 

The hotel has valet parking, and we chose to take it for $40 per day.  Ugh!!!  But we don’t have to look for parking, park in a garage where it’s even more expensive, or try to find on-street parking that we don’t know if they tow you away.  It doesn’t cost as much as the room, and the room seems quite reasonable by comparison.

We had a bite to eat and then headed down toward the water and the dock where some of the cruise ships were docked. 

In one of the buildings there were some young people, a couple of them playing a game of chess.

One young fellow was juggling.

And we came upon an art exhibit hung on the fence.  There were a number of these, all quite unique, and I photographed most of them as they were gorgeous.  The exhibit was called Adornment, by Camille Sanson, a New Zealand photographer based in London.

The series of photographs is meant to reflect the female mask and human fascination with adornments and makeup.

There are shops, cafes, little markets.  It was quite fun, but then it started to rain, and it poured.  We were glad to be wearing rain jackets although that didn’t keep us from getting wet.  Apparently there’s some large storm over the part of the island where we are.  But … it’s warm and it’s not snow.  All is good.