The Hell Hole of the Pacific and Lake Taupo

When we walked out of the airport in Auckland Calvin said that it looked like El Cerrito.  I agree.  I thought most of the North Island looked like Northern California in a really good year.  New Zealand is a gorgeous county.  After Auckland we headed north to the Bay of Islands.  

One day we took the car ferry to the town of Russell, otherwise known as the Hell Hole of the Pacific. Calvin loves a good ferry ride.

Calvin looks pretty comfortable by a 170 year old fig tree.

We toured a pretty little church that is the oldest church in New Zealand.

We had lunch at a beach cafe and then enjoyed a relaxing afternoon on the  beach.

Not a bad way to start a vacation.

Later in the week we spent a couple of days at Lake Taupo, a lake that reminded us of Lake Tahoe. Taupo is a resort town and has it's own distinctive McDonalds

Calvin checking out the MD3

After a hearty meal we took an afternoon kayak paddle on the lake.

The center black cinder cone in the distance (without the snow) is Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings.

We paddled to Mine Bay where in 1976 Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, along with a couple of friends, carved an image of his ancestor Ngatoroirangi in the rock face.

The image is impressive, knowing it was all done with hand tools, but this gives you a little idea of the scale of the carving.

On the paddle back we saw a family of black swans.  They are not native to New Zealand, but I had never seen a black swan before.

Calvin has a few more pictures, but they haven't found their way to my computer, so maybe we'll share them later.

Aukland

We survived the 12 hour flight to Auckland by sleeping for about 8 hours. It made the trip pretty easy.  We arrived at about 7:00 in the morning  so we filled the time until we could check in to our apartment with a ferry ride to Waiheke Island. Calvin is waiting patiently for our ferry.

Calvin smiling happily once we are on the ferry. Ferry rides are one of his favorite things to do.  We just don't get many opportunities to ride the ferry in Reno.

Once we got to Waiheke Island we took a short walk from the ferry terminal across the island to Oneroa for lunch.

The sun came out on our ride back to Auckland so we got a good view of Auckland as we left the harbor of Waiheke Island.

I'm smiling but I look a little bit like I slept on a plane and then walked through a rainstorm.

We got a good nights sleep and then embarked on a walking tour of Auckland this morning. We started our walk along Viaduct Harbor looking at all the boats as we walked.

Then we stopped at the New Zealand Maritime Museum and look at more boats from Maori voyaging canoes to modern racing yachts. We followed that up with lunch and then wandered through Albert park on the way to the Auckland Art Gallery.

We were there for the final day of The Maori Portraits exhibit, which was really interesting, but very crowded.

Our final stop of the day was a trip to the top of the Sky Tower, the southern hemisphere's tallest structure. Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it is the tourist thing to do in Aukland. We had beautiful panoramic views of the city and harbor and even watched people do the "Sky Jump" off the the tower and dropping 192 meters on their harness.

Calvin spotted our apartment so you can see where we started our trip. We are in the complex with the pale pink roof. Victoria Park to the right of the picture had a cricket game going all day Saturday, but the were finished by Sunday.

Auckland is interesting, and you could probably spend week just touring the city, but I'm reading to move out of the city and see a little more of the country

Winter

Winter has been a big event in Reno this year.

We've had a little snow at our house,

but Calvin keeps our driveway nice and clean so it is not much of a problem.

It is a little bigger problem in the Sierras.

This is the parking lot at the top of Mt. Rose Summit

More snow is expected this weekend.

I'm a little tired of winter.

I think spring should be early this year.