Auckland: Day 1

Depart Portland about 12:30 and then hang out at SFO for 5 hours. Oh boy. The flight to NZ was full and as wretched as anticipated--12 hours of sleepless inactivity in a cramped seat you literally had to crawl in and out of--thank goodness for lots of free movies.  Ugh. We arrived at 5:30 am local time, 2 days after we left since we crossed the dateline--that is, we left on Monday and arrived on Wednesday. Somehow we managed to be the very LAST ones to clear customs, and by the time we got a bus to the city and walked to our hotel,  (not as glamorous as the website portrays it, but quite comfy) it was about 8 am. We stored bags, hiked down to the wharf, waited until 9 when everything opened and bought tickets for a "hop on, hop off" bus pass that took us around the city ($40 NZ)--ouch! First place to disembark was a privately owned and run aquarium, Kelly Tarlton's, with an amazing variety and size of collections (see photo of shark bus attacking Hal). They had lots of penguins--a colony of Gentoo and King penguins that you could watch swim underwater--sharks, lobsters, eels, tropical fish, seahorses and sea dragons. Back on the bus to the Auckland Museum, reputedly having the largest collection of Polynesian artifacts in the world. Back to the hotel to get room keys, go find food at an Indian takeaway and then collapse at about 8 pm local time. Since I am managing to take about 100 pictures a day, I can only include a tiny sample here...