Monday, January 28, 2008

New Zealand Road Trip - December 26, 2007 (23)

December 26

Goodbye Auckland...

We finished the packing that we'd started the night before, loaded up the little Corolla, and checked out of the motel. We had a few hours to kill before we needed to be at the airport. Our first thought was to go to the local mall (in the three plus weeks, we actually had not spent any quality time doing "mall" shopping so hadn't experienced that part of the local culture), but it was Boxing Day. Well - you know what Boxing Day shopping is like - if you can get a parking spot. Since we weren't that desperate, we gave up on playing parking lot bumper cars and left. We basically just started driving around. We found this place...

TelstraClear Pacific.

This is "Pou Kapua Taonga" - it's like a totem pole. It has some Easter Island type statues at its base. The sun was at the wrong angle to get a decent pix - check out the website.



Detail.


TelstraClear Pacific - the facility.
Not sure where this was - somewhere on our drive.

Then we found a park... more birds, folks! Craig took most of the following pix. Actually - probably all of them.


Australian Magpie.

Australian Magpie.
Australian Magpie.

Pukeko! Two adults and baby. We don't know if they were related, or just hanging out together. There were quite a few of them. Craig was very pleased.






A close up of baby.
Mangrove in lagoon.

Well - it had to happen eventually. We turned in the car, and in we went - with Traumador, as it turns out. Auckland Airport...





Air New Zealand. They are the monopoly air carrier of NZ. We had a few issues with them, but when you don't have a choice, you have to go with the flow. The in flight service was fine, it was all the other stuff that we weren't that happy with - if you need details, ask. I'm not going into it here. We eventually got on our plane (probably not this exact one) and made it home. Sigh.

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