From Auckland

Greetings from Auckland, where we landed about 3 hours ago.  It was a LONG, but not unpleasant flight from LAX through the night.  A lot of turbulence for part of the time, but that didn't seem to bother anyone under the age of 75.  It didn't bother me much, either, except made sleeping a little difficult.
Now we're killing time at the Aukland airport waiting for our flight to Dunedin.  About a 5 hour layover. I had asked Lillian after we landed here what had she learned about New Zealand so far.  She kind of searched for an answer, before I helped her with : "It's an awful long way from home!"  As we were zooming along at 550 mph I couldn't help but think of the early explorers, such as Captain Cook, who would spend months in their sailing vessels, crossing that same vast ocean that we did in a mere 12 1/2 hours.  I wonder what the people 300 years from now will be using to travel such long distances.  Teleportation??  Maybe it will turn out that Star Trek and it's "beam me up, Scotty" will work after all, and they will marvel at how it took us half a day to travel the distance that they can do in the blink of an eye.
They are predicting quite a rain storm here on the North Island for the weekend, but maybe it will not have much effect on the South Island where we will be.  We can hope anyway.
Will write more after we've settled in at our hotel in Dunedin and checked out some of the attractions in that area.  We should connect up with our bike leaders Sunday evening, and be ready to get on our bikes Tuesday after an exciting train ride.
Jim