My tour of the central part of North Island ended after the Hobbiton tour and a bus ride back to Auckland. I spent a bit of time the next day in the Auckland Central Library getting a couple more blog posts completed and uploaded. Then I went for a walk through Albert Park located behind the Art Gallery and to The Domain, another large park area that has lawn bowling, lovely trails and, at the top, the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Domain Wintergarden green houses, the duck pond and the fernery.

Albert Park:

The Domain:

Karen Arrives!

Karen arrived at the Auckland airport sometime around 7:45am on Monday the 19th. Following my directions, she met me at the Auckland Library around 9:30am. Hurray! Fighting a slight cold after weeks of organizing her student’s Ashland Shakespeare Festival field trip extravaganza and getting ready for this trip, I showed her to our studio apartment where she napped for a bit. I headed back to the library and was lucky enough to see a preview of the Pacifika celebration coming up the weekend of March 24 (we won’t be here). This was a presentation by some Fijians who explained their traditional clothing, items they make from flax and sang a traditional song.

When Karen was up and about, we walked to a Chinese noodle shop for yummy noodles and then to the Auckland Art Gallery to see Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto which stars Cate Blanchett in 13 different roles, each on a different screen, including teacher, news anchor and reporter, homeless man, choreographer, puppeteer and CEO, among others. Each role is a different manifesto of various political or artistic movements, sometimes difficult to understand, intense, funny, unsettling. We finished the last one just as the museum was closing and the sound was turned off.

After the Art Gallery, we went on a walk around the downtown area, stopped in for happy hour at a quaint alley restaurant that had live music and walked down to the waterfront where all the huge yachts are moored.

Difficult to tell, but that’s Karen on the left at the base of the lighted pedestal…and just about out of energy herself. That was Karen’s introduction to Auckland and now her New Zealand adventure begins!

Waiheke Island

We had planned for Karen to visit Waiheke Island soon after her arrival to New Zealand, before we headed south. The next day we boarded the ferry for a day visit to see Lynn and tour the island with Ellen and Michael. What kind and generous people all the way around. Lynn welcomed us at the ferry dock in the morning and brought us to her house. We looked at the beautiful art on her walls, learned about her family, had tea and then went into planning mode for our upcoming journey to the South Island. At this point the visit devolved into phone calls, being put on hold, confirmation numbers and more internet searches. It was a lovely but too short visit. We’ll see Lynn briefly when we return to Auckland on our last day.

Lynn had to work so Karen and I then walked to Ellen and Michael’s where we toured their home and respective art studios. From there we all went to lunch and began our island drive. The weather was perfect and we even went for a swim at Palm Beach. Michael and Ellen were fabulous hosts and we had lots of laughs along the way. Such a beautiful place, wonderful new friends and I’m glad Karen got to discover it too.