At least we didn't lose the car

Isn't she a beauty

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Haven arrived early this morning but she was either an impressively light packer or the airline lost her bag.  Unfortunately it was the latter.  We kept our fingers crossed that it would  come in on the next flight that afternoon. 

I'd already figured out that there wasn't much to do in Auckland.  After we hiked about the city for some nice views we decided to get our rental car a day early and get out of town (pending the location of the lost luggage of course).

The first few moments in the car were an experience that required both of our full concentration.  Haven got the fun job of driving b/c she is actually comfortable with the manual and I just yelled things like "Turn here and stay on this side of the road!"  She was also very concerned with the rain b/c everytime she went to put her turn signal on she decided to also try out the wipers. 

We've nicknamed her the Dump

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Once at the airport we found out that the flight with her bag was delayed and we'd have to wait an hour, but at least her bag made it.  Finally we were ready to go.   Except that in the 100m walk from paying for the parking to getting in our car we managed to lose the parking ticket.   After 30 mins of searching, one jerk of a parking attendent and way too much money we managed to exit the airport and be on our way to Waitomo (of course there was a little bit of confusion, multiple U turns, and some stress....but at least we made it)