As usual, we found some interesting restaurants while visiting Auckland New Zealand Harbourside Ocean Grill, located in the city’s Ferry Building, is a seafood-centric restaurant where we had three entrée-sized dishes, all of which were good. Whitebait fritter (with lemon and chive butter sauce and fennel was like a whitebait (baby fish) omelet; not quite […]
New Zealand
New Zealand’s Waiheke Island

A 40-minute ferry ride from the Auckland Harbor is a beautiful island called Waiheke Island. We packed as much as we could into a Day trip. The ferry ride provided nice views of Auckland as well as providing evidence of the dozens of volcanos that created, and whose underlying faults still shake the region on […]
Auckland Art Gallery

Auckland Art Gallery was the only of the city’s museums that we explored while we were in New Zealand’s North Island. The exhibits were wide ranging. These included a couple galleries of European art from the 16thr through 19th centuries, one of European art from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries that provided a high-level […]
Auckland New Zealand

Although we have spent a fair amount of time on New Zealand’s North Island on previous trips, our only stop on the North Island this year was confined to Auckland. Auckland is the country’s largest city and commercial center. It was also the place from which our plane to San Francisco departed (which was the […]
Eating and Sleeping in Central Otago New Zealand

Central Otago Restaurants We ate at 3 different places while visiting New Zealand’s Central Otago Valley: Mt Difficulty where we had a two-dish lunch. Joyce had broiled Gurnard (a mild, flaky, white/greyish fish) with scallops, asparagus and Kalamata olive and tomato salsa. It was good, but not especially memorable. Tom fared much better with the […]
Touring Central Otago

Although we visited New Zealand’s Central Otaga Valley primarily for its wineries, we also took a little time to briefly explore some of the region’s sights. Some of the most dramatic sights are impossible to miss. Central Otago’s desert-like mountainous landscape is incredible. You are surrounded by tall, jagged mountains: some sheer rock and others […]