Funny how some places are just naturally magic. New Zealand, what little we've seen of it so far, seems to be one of those places. Everyone who's been here raves about it, as comments at the bottom of my blurb will attest, and those who haven't keep it high on their list of wanna-do's, like a dreamy wish.

The weather has been sublime since we arrived, with a blue and white sky that seems to stretch forever through the sparkling air. The city of Auckland is the perfect size. Not too big, not too small. Not too busy, not too quiet. Bustling without having that uptight i Phone-too-tight-black shoes-business suits air about it. The food is great, the prices are manageable, the people are very nice and there are little coffee houses everywhere. Tourist opportunities abound, and somehow, they all seem fun: sail on an America's Cup yacht! Wine tasting and olive grove tours on Waiheke Island! Jump from the Sky Tower!

So we've been partaking of some of the sights, starting with a long walk all over town the first day. So far on our 18-month adventure the first day in a new port, town, berg or city has meant dumping garbage, provisioning, procuring Internet capabilities, and doing laundry. But being boatless has it's inherent freedoms, and all we needed this time was an Internet wifi dongle and a phone card. That done, we spent the next day at Kelly Tarleton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World and had a nice visit with penguins and sand sharks. Today we took the ferry a short but spectacular distance across the water to Devonport, a charming (but not "twee" as my guidebook says, I still have to look that up) community with turn-of-the-2oth-century homes and buildings, great little cafes, and a lot of military stuff left over from the first and second world wars. Guns and cannons and tunnels still reside on the hillside of Devonport's North Head, positioned to protect New Zealand from the bad guys. Fortunately, no gun was every fired "in anger" they say in the 12-minute film on the top of the hill.

We rented mountain bikes for a few hours and got a great workout on the hilly terrain, as well as some fabulous views of the city and surrounding islands. Auckland, known as The City of Sails, has one of the most beautiful harbors we've ever seen. And today being a summer Saturday, it was busy with colorful sailboats everywhere you looked.

Now we're back on Curious, which jerks and rocks and squeaks against her lines and into the giant fenders in the lumpy harbor. It's quite active but we love it, and I know we'll miss all the movement when we get back to really being land-bound again. Allan is checking email with our new Vodaphone dongle, an awkward name for a fabulous device that plugs into the USB port on our laptops and allows us to have Internet access almost anywhere. Terje, friend of Curious's owners Steve and Trish and current occupant of the forward stateroom is relaxing in the cockpit with his Lonely Planet Australia, where he's headed in a few weeks. In a little while the 3 of us will make our healthy salad dinners and Allan and I will be once again astounded at how late it stays light.

Tomorrow we're thinking of checking out the Maritime Museum here, which I remember from some time ago as being really great. And then Monday we take a 4-hour bus-ride to Pahia, where we'll pick up Michael and Gloria's camping-gear-equipped Subaru and drive back to Auckland to hook up with Steve and Trish, who arrive from London on Tuesday. From there, we have no specific plans. There's lots of magic here to discover, and our stack of brochures, guides, maps and fliers weighs about 15 kilos and has us confused enough that we think maybe we'll just start driving north and see what happens.

(Sorry about the blurry picture -- smudge on the lens!)