I spent part of the morning downtown on the Warf again before returning to the hotel to meet the rest of the group and for the orientation session with our Elderhostel guides. Most of the other 39 people just arrived from the States this morning, so we are taking it “easy” today before seriously touring tomorrow.

Elderhostel (see http://www.elderhostel.org) is an educational consortium aimed at people over fifty. It has a serious education component to it, and we will be with a variety of guides and professors the next few days.

We will be here in Auckland, then south to Rotorua, and then Milford Sound before visiting the Queenstown area. We depart for Sydney on March 2d.

“The weather is here, wish you were beautiful!” LOL