Auckland day 1.

TappingBetty picked me up at 5.15 (in the am) and after some interesting route choices had me at the airport shortly after 6.

After I walked thru x ray I got checked for explosives & patted down. (It appears they they thought I was TappingBetty)

Dallied in duty free - resisted the siren call of an iphone (did succumb to the call of the new Michael Connelly tho)

The flight was uneventful and got me to Auckland about 10 minutes late and I was lucky enough to jump straight on an airport bus and was at the hotel by 3.

It may well have been earlier but the hotel is up the steepest street in Auckland – or that's how it seemed as I lugged my case up Wyndham St.

My room is on the 10^th floor with a view between buildings through to Auckland Harbour. It was a lovely sunny afternoon so I headed off to do some exploring.

After checking out Whitcoulls (I'd finished the Connelly & wanted some NZ crimefic to tide me over)

An aside - I feel booksellers have mised an golden opportunity here. It's NZ book month (October) yet I could buy the new Patricia Cornwell, the new Michael Connelly, Robert Jordan, Stieg Larssen on special but would have had to pay full price for the NZ books. Why not a NZ book month special – buy one get the 2^nd 20% off, or 10% off all NZ authors (they'd have had me for sure.)

I wandered towards the harbour (taking photos of Hannah's & Munn's) - getting my bearings & basically checking bus stops & ferry timetables.

Afternoon coffee from 1 Queen Street - reputed to have the best coffee in Auckland (will need to do more tests to see if this is true or not) - gotta say it was pretty good.

Dinner at hotel.

Tapping NZ - Day 1

Melbourne - Auckland

Well day 1 we arrived at tullamarine airport bright and early for our trip to enzed.

At the security checkpoint TappingBetty was (as is usual for her at airports all round the world) taken off to one side and checked for explosive residue, wanded and patted down. I meanwhile was chortling madly as I've long since given up on TB getting thru an airport security checkpoint first try.

By the time we arrived in Auckland it was mid afternoon so we found our hotel, found our rental car, found a chocolate shop and explored Skytower.

We are staying at the Scenic Circle Airedale Hotel in Queen St. (we love RatesToGo) It is a block from the main shopping strip on Queen St and is opposite The Edge theatre/performing arts complex. (it is also just around the corner from the Auckland City Library!). It is also next door to a pub (great pub grub I am led to believe) and has a restaruant/cafe/bar on the ground floor - not to mention being across the road from the bookshop I dare not name - and a couple of doors along from a Gloria Jeans.

Skytower dominates the view from our window so we headed there and watched mad fools (bungy jumpers) throw themselves off the tower. They sort of let the jumpers 'hang' outside the viewing platform window for a few seconds so we got used to looking up from our coffee and seeing a human fly outside the window. There is also a target painted on the ground for the jumpers to aim at - looking down to see a bullseye on the landing deck - hmmm.

We've a couple of days in Auckland at the end where we'll see & do a lot more.

Didn't see any librarians tho'