Hangin' in Kiwiland

The Old Sloat is home! He arrived yesterday at about 2 PM, which was 5 1/2 hours before...yes before...he left Auckland on Air New Zealand. When you fly west to east across the dateline, time does strange things. The bottom line is that Friday, December 14, was a long day! I started by leaving Opononi, on the west coast of New Zealand, about 8 AM; drove to Auckland, checked in for my flight, hung out at the airport for a few hours, flew 12 hours to LAX; went thru customs; flew to Monterey; and finally went to bed early. Except for dozing on the plane, I was basically up 36 hours, just on Friday! This is a shot of a beach in Auckland, with a pohutakawa tree on the left. This fine, gnarly tree grows in coastal areas of northern NZ, and blooms with bright red flowers in December. Thus, it's known as New Zealand's Christmas tree.

New Zealand is about the size of Oregon, and with four million people has a similar population. (There are also 45 million sheep, give or take a few mil. This is down from 60-odd mil 20 years ago). This is a shot of Auckland, NZ's largest city. It's a cosmopolitan place of a little over a million people, similar in size to Brisbane or Adelaide in Australia...or Portland in Oregon, for that matter. The city is surrounded by water and has a very mild climate...the temperature has never been above 90 degrees or below freezing! Actually it's about at the same latitude as Santa Cruz and has a similar climate, except that it rains occasionally in the summer.

The forests of NZ are lush and diverse. One of the most common plants is the silver fern, which can grow at least 50 feet tall. These tree ferns are exotic and beautiful. By the way, they do grow here in Cali; you can find them in Golden Gate Park. But in NZ they're natural.