3/5/15 Sydney to Auckland

Today was a travel day.  We got up early to get to the airport outside of the city.  We left Louise at security, but just by happenstance, we got Bruce as his flight was delayed.  He walked us through customs and then we lost him as he was traveling on a different airline.  We had a nice flight into Auckland where we were met by our Kiwi guide, Di.  My bag was searched as they thought they saw candy on the x-ray (and they are very strict here about bringing in any food, seeds, etc.), but it was my laundry pods that they had spotted.  It was a good thing as we heard later that a man from the last group that came through from Australia had forgotten that he had an apple in his backpack and he had to pay a $400 fine!  Despite the security search, Dave and I must have gone through the VIP line at passport control as we met Di and waited at least a half hour before anyone else from the group got through.  We took the coach to our hotel in Auckland, had a few minutes to freshen up and then took a coach down to the waterfront to have dinner.  The dinner was very good, but the service was extremely slow so we lost the time for our coach to pick us up and most of us elected to walk back to the hotel since it was a pleasant evening (a couple of them took a cab).  Brian, Di's boyfriend, joined us for dinner and he walked back with us.  We stopped on the way to exchange some currency at an ATM.