I had enjoyed a lovely afternoon on Manhattan Beach with a charming German couple and a gorgeous day on Oahu, followed by a mad dash to the airport for my next leg to New Zealand. Fortunately, in the days before 9/11, it wasn’t a problem.

It is weird arriving the day after tomorrow, one of the amazing things about the International Date Line. After many hours of travel, I was both bleary-eyed and excited to spend several days on North Island while I waited for the subject of my assignment to arrive.

Through the LP guide, I found a nice little hotel north of the harbor in Auckland. It was in my price budget, but they were closed. Armed with only the nearly-useless rental-car map, I found another option nearby, checked in, and started asking questions, the first one being, “Where is the automobile club location?”

“Don’t you want to nap first,” asked the hotel proprietor.

“I don’t travel to catch up on my sleep. There is so much to explore, and I have so little time,” was my response.

And here is where serendipity comes in yet again. Had I not found my original hotel choice closed, I am not sure I would have met anyone quite as helpful as the hotel proprietor who was my host for the week. Perhaps he was impressed with my energy and enthusiasm, but whatever it was, he could not have been more helpful, including helping me play phone tag with the woman who was the subject of my assignment. She was on South Island, and her phone schedule did not mesh with mine.

I could stick around the hotel all day, but the proprietor, knowing I was itching to go exploring, suggested that he could certainly take and relay messages. And so, he sent me off to a neat area each day. Auckland Parade the first full day, where I enjoyed watching the traditional Sunday afternoon kite flying in a light rain, the spectacular Maori collection and cultural offerings at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and the Victorian Garden Greenhouse. I had to wait until Monday to get my maps, so this was a perfect first day. I was given excellent directions, so didn’t get lost.

The proprietor thought that the Coromandel Peninsula would make sense for Monday, since I was going to start in that direction anyway when I made my first stop at the AAA affiliate office to get my maps for the week. It was here that I discovered that my level of AAA membership entitled me to free maps along with hefty discounts for a couple of excellent books.

Armed with my mini library of national and regional maps and my trusty LP guide, I found all sorts of treasures on The Coromandel —wild, sandy beaches, dramatic views, stands of native pohutukawa trees, some of them hundreds of years old, cyclamen 10-12 feet in diameter and easily as tall (a far cry from my discreet house plants), huge, 12,000-year-old kauri trees, and even a very shy kiwi, a creature that fascinated me from the time I first started polishing my school shoes as a six-year-old. I found him or her wandering one of the cyclamen.

Bay of Islands with its rich history and Maori presence took up another, very full, day, as it is on the northern part of North Island. I watched the sailboats in the bay, visited some of the historical sites, and puttered along back lanes. Stopping for directions, I met a charming Maori woman who invited me for afternoon tea and told me a lot about the history of the area, including that New Zealand had been discovered by Kupe, the famous Maori navigator, some time in the early 900’s. I returned late that evening via a road through another great kauri forest, eerie in its darkness on a moonlit night.

For my last free day, I headed down to the thermal area of Rotorua that sits on the shores of a large lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. Rotorua is definitely a tourist trap, but I have always been fascinated by geology, so I had to go anyway. I had stopped to watched a Maori artist carving a bone Hei-Matau, or fish hook. It was elegantly simple, and I asked him some questions. He remarked that I was different from most of the tourists, and I replied that I hoped so. We chatted some more, and when he was through, I bought the piece. As I put on the Hei-Matau, the artist told me of some areas that were not frequented by most of the tourists nad then gave me directions. He was right. I visited an arew where the warm waters cascaded down into a pool of the most extraordinary azure color, bubbling mud pots that I had to myself, and quiet paths rich in flora and fauna.

My last couple of days in New Zealand were taken up scouting (again, my wonderful host pointed me in some great directions) for the assignment, and actually meeting my subject and doing several portraits of her.

So, I went to New Zealand as a stop on the way to Australia and for an assignment that helped pay for my extended trip. I ended up seeing a great deal of North Island, and met some very interesting people along the way. I was looking for one thing, and instead found far more.

Feeling that the first week of my nine-week adventure was a success, I boarded the plane for the long flight to Sydney. I would spend the night there, then head to Western Australia to see my daughter who was enjoying a semester at Curtin University in Perth.

Part III to be continued next Friday (or Saturday, if I am late in posting as I was this week).