Day 2 – Our Kiwi Kronicles Begin

We awoke quite refreshed after a good night’s sleep, made tea and lazed away the better part of the morning.  However, we did have some things that had to be accomplished so we headed out for breakfast, ok brunch.

 

Chowing Down

 

The first thing on our agenda was to find a hair salon so that Kathy could get a haircut.  We were able to find her a salon that was within walking distance.



Whoa Girl, I said short, not scalp.

 The next priority was looking into and hopefully setting ourselves up with short term phone and internet service.  This proved to be much easier than I expected as the major companies here have plans where you can pay by the month.  They call it pay as you go.  The price was very reasonable, in fact less than we would pay in the US.   As a result we now have phone and internet service.

Once we had our chores done we walked around downtown Auckland for a bit and did a bit of shopping.  Let me rephrase that, we did a bit of looking.  The prices for the most part were very high.  In areas like camping gear and clothing the prices were double to triple what we could get it in the states.    Fortunately we were aware of this and brought everything we need.



Victoria Street, Auckland



Downtown Auckland



We returned to the hotel to have a rest before dinner.  We are meeting up with Carli Eger,  a young lady who is from Edmonton but is living here in Auckland.  Carli is the niece of Kim Kasperski who has been a good friend of Kathy’s since high school. 



Carli Eger


Carli picked us up at our hotel and we drove over to a section of Auckland called St. Heliers.  It was  a lovely drive along the waterfront and you could see why Auckland is called “The City of Sails”.  I think every person here has a sailboat.

We stopped at a little Italian Restaurant and had a very nice meal with a lovely lady.  Carli is a charming and delightful young lady and we really enjoyed her company.  She has been here for two years and has travelled the islands quite a bit so she was able to give us quite a few pointers.  We finally talked ourselves out and headed back to hotel.  It was a great evening and we plan to see Carli again before we leave New Zealand



Kathy and Carli