"BOGUS VT page, exhibit A. My trip to... " a Auckland Travel Page by pchamlis

I'm just having some fun here, folks....while mourning just a little bit. I recently spent 16 days in Australia. And as you'd guess, I barely scratched the surface. When we began planning our trip, we were deciding between Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, or maybe a combo. We finally decided to concentrate on one at a time, in the interest of avoiding "tour mentality", and chose Oz.

I've always wanted to visit New Zealand because I KNOW it's a beautiful, unspoiled and breathtaking country. I've met many Kiwis, and have found them to be charming and helpful. Some of them have that same little twist of madness that pervades me. : ) Anyway, as much fun as I had in Australia, I was a sad to know we'd miss NZ on this trip.

But, not entirely..... Coming home, our flight from Brisbane to LAX had a two hour stopover in Auckland. So TECHNICALLY, I've been to New Zealand. I didn't get beyond baggage claim or immigration, and the closest I came to buying anything was watching a guy use a pay phone in the Auckland airport. But......I've been to New Zealand.

It's now ON my VT map. This page is as bogus as heck. All I can show is a couple of airport photos. But it'll have to do until I get back to Oceania. Someday I can hook up with many of my Kiwi pals here on VT, and I really look forward to it.

Until then, cheers to all. And from what I saw flying in, New Zealand is even prettier than I expected.

Here's the airport waiting room in Auckland. It was under construction, so it was a little extra cramped. And since none of us had cleared NZ immigration, and since I only had a transit visa, this was as far as I was going on this visit.

They had comfortable chairs, though. I only wish they'd had a licensed bar within my grasp. I could have used a cold one. : )

As you can see, my wife Bonnie has a smile on her face. Taken in the transit gate area at Auckland International airport, it was a welcome chance to stretch our legs.

Her smile faded a bit as she realized we still had another 13 hours of flight from New Zealand to Los Angeles. I'm sure her smile would have been much larger had we been able to stay in New Zealand for a few weeks. A trip to the Southern Alps would've been much nicer than heading home to hot and steamy north Florida.