A warm Kiwi welcome, twice

Almost a 13 hour flight on a 747-400, but Air New Zealand fed us well! Sunny in Auckland this morning and it was great to do the walk from Terminal 1 to Domestic flights at Terminal 2. Travelled on the plane from LA with a huge U.S. college girls' soccer team on their way to Napier, like, OMG! Good to get some NZ fresh air when we landed, then off again to Chch. Back to the land of meat pies, mince, sausage rolls and pasties! Yum. Rick is explaining the subtle differences here to Jim.

Wonderful surprise (since we hadn't seen the blog post) to see Ian and Kate Hall there grinning at us at the Christchurch airport as we came down the stairs! Ian was festooned in his U of S golf shirt. Had a cup of coffee with them and a great visit before boarding the last flight, this time a turbo prop, to get us to Dunedin.We were met there by Gill Rutherford and treated royally from the drive in to the city, to a welcome stash of staples in our fridge at 47 Russell (see photo) complete with roses from her garden, to tea at her house afterwards. She's even lent us a plunger! (fyi, that's not for the toilet; it's a Bodem coffee maker :)

She's promised to haul us around to the grocery tomorrow. Wonderful to have such good friends. Our house is even better than we expected! Older place, with tons of character and fantastic views. Lovely welcome note from Sarah and Glenn, our landlords, with vase of flowers. This photo is of just off the dining area to a sunroom and backdeck. Clothes line in the garden just below. The house is not the one that shows up on Google map; there's a lane and our place is tucked in behind. We will post more photos once the grey clouds move on. We'd show you one of the city lights coming on in the harbour, but we're too sleepy! Heading for bed. Jim hauled luggage like a strong man all day and jogged to keep up. He has earned a good sleep. Goodnight from Dunners :) and thanks again to Halls and Gill for the welcome. We feel like we're home again.