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The highs and lows

March 1, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

…. as written from just South of Winnipeg at 12,000 metres, it’s time for a recap of the last nine weeks.

  Best   Worst
Airline Air New Zealand from Auckland to Sydney. Upgraded, big seats, big screens and lots of free stuff.   United from San Francisco to London. Dominatrix pensioners, screaming babies and loud men. Thai Airways out of London was a close second.
Airline lounge Air New Zealand in Auckland. Gave us beans and toast for breakfast.   US Airlines in Phoenix. No food and drinks are charged. On the plus side, the barman did sing us a song.
Surprise How big America is. And some of them even know where the UK is. And Lone Pine was pretty cool.   Having the wallet stolen on New Year’s Eve.
Drinks Happy hour martini’s at “the bitter end” in San Diego. Bad hangover.   Happy hour martini’s at “the bitter end” in San Diego. Wine in Marlborough, New Zealand is a close second.
Accommodation Green house on the hill for ambience. The second hotel in Melbourne for facilities.   Melbourne guest house. No en suite toilet or aircon. It’s high 30’s outside.
View Yosemite (Franz Josef Glacier a close second)   The rain from the motel in Kaikoura while doing nothing.
Place Yosemite. Or snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.   Las Vegas. Bored after three hours and we have three days there.
Food Malaysian/Chinese food on Cuba Street, Wellington.   Most of America. We OD on salt and retain too much water.
Baggage check Flagstaff. About an hour on both our bags. Seriously bored staff.   New Zealand. Opened the bags but didn’t look inside because it was so tidy.
Weather Sydney, Australia and Bay of Islands, New Zealand   San Francisco – it rained except for the first day.
Stephen’s cutting comments) N/A   “it’s ok I can read signs” to the guide at the Hoover dam asking if we needed directions.
In flight movie Burn after reading   Sisterhood of the travelling pants 2. (This is without watching it too!)
Unfriendly receptionist Wanaka. She wouldn’t stop talking to us.   Alice Springs so called “Resort”
Most surreal moment Critic-ing “Adrenalin Rush Hour” for the discovery channel in Vegas.   Vegas timeshare saleswoman thinking the UK was on the European continent …. somewhere.

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Wanaka/Queenstown/Auckland/Sydney

February 11, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

After an early night in Wanaka, it’s an hour drive to Queenstown airport. Car returned, we wait a couple of hours for the Qantas flight.4087 leaving queenstown

Except for the initial fantastic views over the Southern Alps, it’s an uneventful flight.  As we come in to land it’s 25 degrees but with a humidity of 100%

With the city centre 29km away and an early start the next day, we stay in an Airport Hotel in Auckland. The Kiwi International Hotel sounds luxurious but is in fact a distinctly 2 star affair. With no air-con, the humidity is oppressive.

We’re peckish and go on the hunt for food. There’s a supermarket nearby but with only a kettle and some cutlery, it’s slim pickings.

4088 lunch at kiwi international

I’m considering a new career in modern art. Therese has a cup a soup.

Bad food, bad TV and a couple of hours later, we have something a little more substantial from a nearby Greek themed place, followed by a couple of glasses of wine in the hotel. The heat drops … but only a little. We manage an hour or so of sleep before the 0345 start the next day.

The shuttle bus drops us at the Airport and it’s a quick check in and through to the lounge. We demolish some beans on toast while waiting for the next flight, to Sydney.

We get another upgrade on Air New Zealand and get through the new Coen Brothers film (good). In Sydney for 0830 local time, we’ve already been up nearly 7 hours.  The next flight isn’t until mid-afternoon and the baggage couldn’t be routed, so we have to clear customs and enter Australia again, only to check in later. A last minute electronic visa application and we’re sitting back in the lounge by 1 o’clock waiting for our flight out …

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Rotorua

January 26, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

With an early start behind us, we’ve 450km ahead of us. This seems to be quite a big deal in NZ. Last night we discussed our plans with our neighbour.

“450km? Hmmm – that’s a lot. I suppose you could just do it if you take lots of stops.”

Most of the roads outside the main cities are single carriageways with  100kph limits. However, to get anywhere, you pass through a multitude of towns at 50kph and when clear of them tend to be trapped behind a log truck/caravan/hire motorhome for quite some time. It does take a while to get anywhere.

Still, we’re on the road for 0930. Being one of the first people to use the Northern Toll road, a little North of Auckland also helps trim 30 minutes from our journey. Barring one quick coffee and lunch stop South of the same city, we’re nearing Rotorua by 3pm.

The scenery has changed significantly since heading South. It’s much flatter. Around 100km from Rotorua the route zig-zags around farm perimeters unexpectedly. This isn’t the sat nav having fun, rather just the way the road goes.

We check in at the Quality Hotel Geyserland, picked for it’s Geyser views.

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The view of Venus, above right, is actually also the view from the hotel room. For those of you without the internet explorer/firefox/safari odour-me-3D plug-in, let me assure you, the sulphur smells pretty strong for the first view hours. This is a town where no-one knows you’ve passed wind.

It turns out we’re around 2km from the centre of town – along one long road, Fenton Street. This we walk, in search of food. We’ve come to realise that being vegetarian in New Zealand is surprisingly difficult – more so than in Australia. I need vegetables after much pizza and bread recently.  We give the mad butcher a miss.

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After a quick glass of wine , over which we talk to the only ever people I know from New Caledonia, dietary salvation appears in the form of The Indian Star. The vegetarian banquet does the job and the 2km return along Fenton Street to walk it off aids the digestion admirably, allowing us to watch the geysers and mudpool as the day closes.

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Auckland Anniversary

January 23, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

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Having a quiet drink near the harbour around 9.30pm, most of the bar cleared quite quickly. No, it wasn’t in acknowledgment to one of my jokes … it turns out a firework display has started.

Celebrating the Anniversary of the founding of Auckland … we weren’t quite expecting this.

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Auckland Museum

January 23, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

A walk across The Domain takes us to Auckland Museum.  We arrive around midday. First stop, the Winter Gardens.

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Then onto the Museum.

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The ground floor is given over to Polynesian artefacts – and Edmund Hillary’s ice axe. That in itself takes us 90 minutes to get round.

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We stop for lunch before going back. The first has a lot of the flora and fauna – much of which we’ve already seen around in Australia … except for the volcano simulation (cool) .

3655 aucklandThe top level gives a comprehensive history of New Zealand wars – from the arrival of the Europeans through to peace keeping in Kosovo.

It’s the first time I’ve seen Southern Hemisphere propaganda …

Not quite sure where all the time has gone – but we’re not even out of the place until around 4.30pm. As we saunter back, we hear on the news that there’s been a shooting! And this place is supposed to be quiet.

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Waitakere Ranges and Whatipu

January 22, 2009 in long haul 2009 by Stephen | No comments

We collect our hire car around midday (a Mazda sedan type thing). Not entirely sure where to go, Whatipu seems as good a place as any, on the West coast.

Within ten minutes, we’re out of the city and driving through the Waitakere Ranges and stop off (completely through luck) at Mill Bay. Absolutely stunning. Though the beach appears to consist of pebbles, it’s actually all shells …

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After some lunch, we continue on to Whatipu. The last 10km or so are on unpaved roads.

It’s all volcanic sand to the beach – which again is quite stunning.

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The tide is going out. There’s some strange animals washed up on the beach, which the locals refer to as blue bottles. The inflated section also seems to track us as we walk past ….

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Turns out it’s a Portuguese Man of War. It’s not a jellyfish but a siphonophore (look it up, it’s quite fascinating). Irrespective, we stay well away from it.

Late afternoon, we drive back through quite idyllic scenery …

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… and a quiet night in …

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