Auckland to Queenstown

In Auckland we went to a very nice museum--it reminded me of the Bell Museum.  It had some cool displays, especially the volcano exhibit and seeing live Wetas (Annie really loved the volcanoes).  Joshua learned that a kiwi is a fruit, a bird, and a person!  Auckland has many restaurants and grocery stores with Asian food:  Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.  Auckland has many palm trees--very tropical looking!  This morning (Sunday), we got to the airport in Auckland to fly to Queenstown.  Then we found out that an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano was in our airline’s fly space and our flight was cancelled and that sometimes the clouds last several days!  We could take a flight from another airline which would have charged us $450 instead of the $100 we originally paid!  We reviewed our possibilities and eventually called the rental car company that we were renting from in Queenstown and arranged to pick up a car in Auckland instead.  Then we cancelled our lodging booking in Queenstown and started to drive.  We got all the way to Wellington City to take the ferry first thing in the morning.  (And all of this with no cell phone!).  We’re in the Wellington Youth Hostel now getting ready for bed.  Too much time in the car!  And just for the record, Chile is in the western hemisphere!  Not near here!

Oh, and Annie has decided to do a video blog with her new video camera she purchased with birthday and babysitting money so she might not post anything on this--I’ll keep on her to try anyway!