9/15 -- Arrive in New Zealand

 We lost a day flying over the date line, and landed at 5:30 am. I actually managed to sleep and rack up 15 minutes more than I got my last night at home. My fitbit told me I even got some deep sleep along with dreaming, so not bad for a plane. Immigration and baggage went fairly smoothly, but they are very strict about what you can bring in and you have to declare ANY food, even if it is allowed. Commercially prepared and unopened nuts and candy are ok, but Sandy was told by our guide that the San Francisco sourdough starter, even though commercially packaged, that she had planned as a home gift, was problematic because it had San Francisco yeast not New Zealand yeast.

Sandy discovered an app to let you declare online and we both used it, but I messed up and answered 'Other' for my Kind Bars, because they aren't exactly candy or nuts. BAD plan. That meant I had to go into the Declare line and one of the signs led to a baggage claim. Lost 5 minutes there before I asked for help. Then the ACTUAL Declare line was jammed with WAY too few agents asking all the same questions I had answered online before finally sending me out TOOK FOREVER -- like a half hour. And then we still had to pass a sniffer dog to make sure we hadn't lied.

There were 6 of us on the same plane and we figured we were going to be the last ones out, but we were the first. It took another 2 hours to locate everyone,  but we finally headed to the hotel. The Voco Hotel is in the city center, near the Skytower that looks like the CN Tower in Toronto seen here from our room.

We vegged pretty much until it was time for the group introductory meeting where we met our fellow travelers and got the travel plan from Rod, our tour leader. After the meeting, we headed to the main street to try to get me a sim card so I can have reasonably priced data access here, to use an ATM, and find a place for an early dinner before we collapsed. We found the ATM and the SIM card store, but it had closed 20 minutes earlier and isn't open on weekends, so another plan is needed. We looked for a reputed food court for a quick dinner, but had little success and ended up at the hotel's Italian restaurant for pizza and a salad. 

P.S. Sandy also has a blog  here