My brother Eric and I finally left for New Zealand. Our plane left Minneapolis on-time at 5:15 pm on Friday, 10/20 and headed for Los Angeles. We arrived for what should have been a 2 hour or so layover but the 747 that was to take us on arrived later so we ended up waiting at LAX for around 3 ½ hours. When we finally did get underway, it was in the largest plane I’ve ever been on -- 10 seats across and 75 or so rows and 2 decks. This flight was a 12 hour flight, also the longest flight by far I’ve ever been on. Surprisingly, this was a really comfortable flight. I guess Qantas knows how to take care of its international travelers.
We arrived in Auckland at 8am on Sunday, 10/22. It was just an overnight flight, but since it crossed the international dateline, our 10/21 simply vanished. But no worries, we’ll get that day back when we return. We got through customs ok, despite having the guards hand search my tent and our hiking boots. They are very serious about not introducing foreign plant species so wanted to be sure our outdoor equipment didn’t have any seeds along for a ride.
We were greeted at the terminal by a man working for the rental car company – Scottie’s Car Rental (a branch of Advantage) holding a sign with my name on it. He was our first point of contact w/ a New Zealander (called 'Kiwis') and he was very friendly. I had reserved a car to be picked up and dropped off in Auckland but he helped us arrange a domestic flight tomorrow morning to Christchurch where we’ll pick up a car and drive it one-way back to Auckland. This should save us several days of driving and the money saved by only having to take the ferry once will completely offset the money spent on the domestic flight (only $95 NZ each w/ tax).
An unfortunate American couple who traveled with us to the car rental place were having a rough start to their trip and giving the poor rental car man a bad day as well. They were a bit upset by the delays in processing (locals don't seem to always be concerned about doing things as quickly as possible) – on top of the lost luggage they had – and when they finally left with their car they came back 5 minutes later with a flat tire. “It’s always the Americans” the rental car guy muttered as they rolled in.
The problem was with driving in the left lane. He took a round-a-bout too tight and hit the curb. I don’t blame him. This is my first time driving on the left side of the road as well, and I must say it has been a pretty harrowing experience on my first day. Feels like I’m 16 again learning to drive all over again – constantly thinking about what I’m doing, hitting the wipers instead of the turn signals since they're on opposite sides of American cars. I hear when people return from NZ they get the opposite problem since they’ve acclimated to the left way of doing things.
Today was a pretty boring day. Once we found a hostel (Oaklands Hostel) we basically just loafed around and walked to a few cafes. The most exciting thing was a trip up to the top of Mt Eden. It’s an old volcano a few blocks from where we’re staying with incredible views across all of Auckland and a giant crater at the top.
We’re both extremely exhausted now from traveling and have been fighting to stay awake all day to ensure our sleep patterns match up with the day and night correctly. We’ll be going to bed shortly (6 or so) and will have to get up early (4:30ish) to catch our flight tomorrow to Christchurch.
(Not much for pictures w/ this post as neither of us took too many in Auckland)
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