Oct 1

Spent the day at Rainbow's End theme/amusement park. Nothing special from US standards, but a couple of the rides were new to me. They had "bumper boats", big inner tubes with a small outboard motor (heh, I guess that would be "inboard" because it was in the hole) and a platform you sat on. Ramming into other people would cause a nice splash. Also a different form of a "spin you around and upside down" ride that I haven't seen anywhere before. Four seats (two pairs, back to back) on each of six arms, where the wheel of six arms spun around on it's axis and also moved around in the other directions. This ride was much calmer than I expected - yeah, you went upside down, but you never felt pushed around. Almost like being on a big swing.

As usual, see pictures here.

Sep 30

Went to Butterfly Creek in the morning. A bit smaller than I expected, but interesting anyway. First a room with a few aquariums with some salt-water fish. Then the butterfly room (see pictures here). Then the crocodiles, which were still fairly new. The keepers went in to "exercise" them while we were there, which involved playing with the crocs with a long brush, and a rope with rags on the end. Then they got out the baby alligators and let people pet them.

Butterfly creek only took us until around lunch time, so we stopped in a cafe on the way home and had sandwiches for lunch, then walked to the Auckland Domain (a large park in central Auckland). From there we headed to Parnell street to find a dinner place. Ended up at a very empty Indian joint, where we ordered two "hot" dishes (mango chicken and beef vindaloo) and two "medium" (lamb and ginger beef). I would have called them "almost painfully hot" and "hot" but we finished it all. Actually very very good.

After dinner we headed over to the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Nice viewing of the city lights. We didn't do the "sky walk" or the bungee jump though.

Sep 29

Did the Museum of Transport And Technology. Pretty cool, sort of a Kiwi Smithsonian, although centered only on vehicles and tech. I really liked the old cars, and the exhibit on Richard Pearse, who (probably) flew a heavier than air plane a couple of years before the Wright brothers.

The old steam engines were awesome - some were running. Amazingly quiet, actually. And I'm always a sucker for big gears and other pieces of steel.

There was a little bit of science museum discovery stuff, which the kids enjoyed, too.

We had fish and chips for lunch - NZ$15 easily fed the five of us! Dinner was just bread and cheese and salad in the hotel room.

Sep 28

For our first full day in Auckland, we decided to hit the zoo. I'd call it an above average zoo, but nothing too special. Had some emphasis on NZ/OZ animals, but also your typical lions/tigers/elephants/giraffes, etc.

As far as pictures go, I think I'll just link to Heather's facebook albums - seems silly to upload all the good pictures twice.

Went to a Korean restaurant in central Auckland for dinner. That was a big disappointment. Oh well.

Sep 25-27

In which we fly from Fairbanks, AK to Auckland, NZ.

Stayed up late (1:30 am or so) on the 24th, packing and finishing last minute details. Leaving the country for 2.5 months is hard!

In the morning on the 25th we got up at 4:30 (Heather) and 5:00 (Chris), showered, got the kids up, and headed to the airport at about 5:40. Made it through security by 6:20, and they were just beginning boarding for the 7:00 am flight. Slept a little on the plane to Seattle, where we had a 7 hour layover. The pic is of an Alaska Airlines jet with a salmon painted on it, hadn't seen that one before. We met up with our friend Amber Walker, who picked us up and took us home, where our kids played with hers, and we had pizza. I ended up sleeping while the rest of them took a walk. Back to the Sea-Tac airport, short flight to LA where I didn't sleep at all.

In LA there was *no* signage telling us where to go to get to the international terminal, but a nice lady we met on the plane who was also going to NZ had asked, so we figured it out. (Wait at gate 39 for the shuttle. The sign at gate 39 says "Wait here for the shuttle" but doesn't say where it goes, heh.)

The 11 hour flight from LA to Auckland was pretty nice, despite being in economy class. Comfortable seats, with very nice headrests (adjustable wings that were very strong, which could hold your head in good position.) The in seat movies/TV on demand had probably 50 movies and 5-10 episodes of another 50 TV shows. The meals (2!) were good, and the beer was free. I had a Victoria Bitter (blah, but ok) and a James Squire Golden Ale (yum!) Also got a few (5-6) hours of fitful sleep.

Arrived in Auckland about 8:30 am, on Sunday the 27th. Crossing the international dateline, we lost the entire day of Sep 26th. We'll get it back going home, of course. But still, that was around 31 hours of travel, so we were pretty tired.

Welcome

Welcome to the Hartman's blog of our New Zealand vacation.

Cast of characters: Me, Chris Hartman. My wife, Heather Hartman. Our kids, Sarah (13), Robbie (11), and Naomi (8).

Last year we decided to come to New Zealand and drive around the country for about two and half months. We'll be here from Sep. 27th until Dec. 11th.

This blog is mostly for us to remember our trip, but I'm also putting it out here for all my friends to read. Since it's for us, there will probably be far too many details for most of you. I may try to do a summary paragraph, some pictures, then append the more "diary" type stuff.

We'd love any comments!