Somewhere after leaving LAX at 10 pm on Sept. 3rd on the 14 hour flight to Sydney, Sept. 4th disappeared and Rugby World Cup fever appeared. Sydney airport at 6 a.m. on Sept. 5th was full of World Cup memorabilia shops. Our flight to Auckland was loaded with people in Irish and Springbok jerseys, All Black t-shirts (nobody can afford the $170 price of the jerseys),World Cup baseball caps, and everyone’s question was, “Are you going to the World Cup?” Everybody’s answer was, “Of course!”
After 10 hours sleep in a freshly painted room at an airport motel we woke to a New Zealand sunrise filtering through the morning fog. We hopped the shuttle to the United Camper Van Depot where the office buzzed with Argentines and Aussies picking up their “rigs”. By 10:30 we on the Highway 1 headed south to the thermal pools in Rotorua.
