I made my 24th annual visit to the island of Moorea in French Polynesia, March 3-31, 2012. Tahiti and its neighbors in this archipelago are the loveliest islands I’ve visited in the South Pacific.
When my husband and I headed Down Under a few years ago, we thought that the month we would spend in New Zealand would be an appetizer before the main event, Australia. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
New Zealand artist Chris Booth built “Gateway,” the 75-foot-high monument that’s the subject of October’s photo, between 1986 and 1990. Since then, the two columns of rock, “joined” by an arch of water, have stood sentinel at one of the entrances of Albert Park in central Auckland, New Zealand.
Less than an hour’s drive west of the Auckland airport on New Zealand’s North Island is Bush Sand & Sea B&B (26 Te Aute Ridge, Bethells Beach, Waitakere City, Auckland, N.Z.; phone 0064 9 810 9584).
As a tour operator, I was on Midway Atoll in March ’11 escorting a group of 15. Part of the Hawaiian Archipelago, the atoll is an unincorporated US territory, but everyone needs a valid passport to visit, even US citizens.
