How I avoid jetlag is to hang onto that first day as long as I can, crash, then awake refreshed ... fully into the new time zone. That was a bit challenging in Auckland as it is a noisy city. Party-ers called out in the streets until past 4AM. Car alarms and sirens were going pretty consistently until then as well. But between 6PM and 6AM, we managed to get 8-10 hours of sleep.
We got up just in time to grab a bite of breakfast, scoop our stuff, check out, and fast-walk the 8 blocks to the Stray Travel office for 6:50AM. There were two guys waiting outside the door already ... then about six others wandered in over the next 20 minutes. Then two Stray Travel busses pulled up.
Most of us piled into the one driven by "Muesli". (He talked a lot on our drive up to Paihia, but so far we haven't heard the story about his name.) He told us we would be making about five stops on our way out of Auckland in order to pick up the rest of our group, but what none of us knew was that we would hit every red light in Auckland along the way.
We eventually had everyone on-board and left the red lights behind. We passed over the Auckland Harbour Bridge and out of the city. Muesli talked up a storm, telling us what our next 3 days would look like, some history of New Zealand, stories of local celebrities, and stories of himself.
Our first stop outside of Auckland was Parry Kauri Park with the amazing Kauri trees.
Our second stop was to see (and not necessarily use) an amazing bathroom designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
I have run out of time for blogging at the moment, as we are gathering for breakfast shortly. I will be back to put in some details after our tour of the Bay of Islands today.
Hi Jeff & Kate.. Thanks for the update. Great to hear things are going well. I was over the "Bay of Islands" on Vpike yesterday. It looks wonderful. Enjoy another day of exploring. M & D.
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