October 22nd, a date I will always remember. New Zealand has been #1 on my list of places to visit for as long as I can remember. And I'm finally here!!!
We arrived at the airport in Auckland, collected our luggage, and then took what seemed like an interminable walk to where we would be able to collect our rental car. The plan is for me to do most, if not all, of the driving on this trip. It took a little while at the rental counter. For some reason, the reservation was under Lisa's name, not mine - even though we had made it clear to the travel agent that I was the primary driver. It got settled though, and we loaded the car. And I sat in the seat on the right and tried to remember how to drive on the left. It had been quite a while.
We had landed around 2pm (1400 in NZ) and made it to the hotel and checked in by later afternoon. We unpacked enough to be able to make it through the night, found something to eat, and then headed back to the hotel (M Social Auckland) to relax for the evening.
We leave in the morning the 170-ish km drive to Hobbiton. That's about 105 miles to those of us who use that instead. It should take about 2 hours or so. The roads in New Zealand are not likely to be superhighways!
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