So What's This Blog All About Then?
Since Dave and I met, we've been fortunate enough to travel to some far-flung and wonderful places, including Barbados and Australia. Last year we planned to take a nice long trip to New Zealand, until Dave's cancer diagnosis put a dent in our arrangements. With grateful thanks to Dave's particular combination of common sense and pessimism, and the swift and wonderful workings of the NHS, that particular episode is all but behind us (no pun intended!), and our New Zealand trip went back on the calendar just 12 months after originally scheduled.
I've always been one for writing journals to document the details of our holidays and I'm usually the one taking hundreds of snaps to document the journey and ambiance of wherever we are. One of my New Year's resolutions was to start to retrospectively compile some of these into photo-books, but with the options it gives to add more words, we've decided (additionally) to document our most recent holiday as a blog. We should nod our thanks for the notion to Ben and Jackie, our fellow Eureka Machine fan friends, whose umpteenth Kiwi visit coincided partially with ours, and who routinely record theirs this way (and it's a great/fun read).
(I've asked before why it is that Jude scribbles the stuff down in a book, that then goes in a box somewhere, I guess now I know - Dave)
We're Off To New Zealand!!
With our flight from Heathrow booked for 10pm on the evening of February 18th, we finished work the day before and tried to start winding down. On the day, we completed the mammoth task of trying to pack for 4 weeks away, wrote long notes to Dave's mum who had gamely agreed to cat-sit, and then had the slightly anxious wait for the taxi driver who had headed to a similarly named street on the other side of town (when I was already convinced that we hadn't left enough time to allow for hold-ups on the dreaded M1).(The driver actually got halfway to our house, according to the tracker, and then turned around and headed back to Loughborough!)
It was fine; we arrived in good time and were soon in that weird position of being excited about the forthcoming trip and concerned about the prospect of long hours in flight.
 |
| "Ebola Bob" (ask Jude) didn't appear phased by the prospect of the journey. |
For info, we went on Singapore airlines and it's roughly 13 hours to Singapore's Changi airport, and then 10 hours from there to Auckland. The flight wasn't unpleasant, with a good selection of films and TV to watch (we both watched the whole season of Toby Jones' Detectorists which was excellent*, and Room which was also marvellous but had considerably fewer laughs), and plenty of decent food.
*(I'm still trying to recover from watching Mr Jones drop the 'C' Bomb - Dave)
About three quarters of the way in, there was a call for any doctors on board (never a good sign), and it was obviously serious enough that we had to divert to Bangkok airport for someone to get more professional medical assistance. The hour or so that we spent on the tarmac there caused many of us some concern in relation to connecting flights, but fortunately all connecting Singapore airlines flights were held for us.
Fast forward ten or so hours, and we landed in Auckland shortly after lunchtime New Zealand time.
(...and Jude managed her first Middle Earth encounter, without even leaving the airport!)
 |
| "Aren't you a little tall for a dwarf?" |
Sunday February 21st
After a lovely breakfast on the hotel veranda (pancakes, fruit and yoghurt), we headed into Auckland, making a bee-line for the harbour area where we wandered round and picked up a bunch of brochures of possible things to do. We also visited the very helpful people in the iSite and asked for campsite information; we had variously read that you could more-or-less stop anywhere in a self-contained motor-home, and that you needed to book ahead by a few days to get spaces on the better sites.
We then headed to the Sky Tower and, once we eventually found the entrance, cunningly disguised as an hotel, went up to the 51st floor Observation deck. Like the one in Sydney, it gave marvellous 360 degree views of the city and surrounding waterways and islands. Whilst there, we bumped into an old acquaintance from Kibworth Cricket Club, Arthur Morritt. He and his wife were on their last day in Auckland, and were nearing the end of 5 weeks away. We chatted for a bit, and later joined them for coffee in the Sky Tower café where I had the first of many chai lattes, and they added to our already overstuffed 'must see/do list'.
We'd popped up to the 60th floor and caught sight of the orange prison-suit-like garb, worn by the folk doing the SkyWalk round the edge of the building (connected to harnesses, it still looked a bit scary, although Dave was convinced I'd have loved it). We also (very briefly!) managed to catch sight of one or two of those adventurous souls doing the rather more adrenaline-inducing Sky Dive where they get hooked up to a system of wires and jump off, landing on a target about 2-3m from the pavement some 11 seconds and 190-odd metres later!
After that we dropped into Vodaphone and picked up a cheap phone, complete with 100 minutes of calls for making our campsite bookings, and then headed back to the waterside for a scenic cruise. Having limited time but various options, we picked the Harbour cruise which gave us time to have lunch in the Crab Shack (more soft shelled crabs for Dave, this time with his beloved pickled ginger).
The cruise was nice, no room outside and dirty windows but good commentary on where we were and a 10 minute stop on Rangitoto Island, a volcanic island covered in trees which seem to thrive despite the lack of any soil. Getting back around 3.15pm, we then used our complementary ferry ticket for a trip across to Devonport. What a lovely place; we wandered round the main street with its Victorian facades, pubs, cafés and craft shops (eating sorbet), and then along the beach.
 |
| View from the Ferry |
 |
| Rangitoto Island |
 |
| Devonport |
After an hour we headed back and made the long hard slog up the hill to the hotel where Dave fell asleep putting our dinner plans on hold. I woke him at 9pm and we treated ourselves to my first ever room service.
Monday February 22nd
The plan was, we would do a cruise out to Tiritiri Matangi island, a wild-life sanctuary with lots of rare and reintroduced native birds, which was an all-day trip starting with a 75 minute boat-trip. Sadly, on checking, this only runs Wednesday to Sunday, so we'd missed out.
Instead we headed to the Domain, a large park which included the Auckland War Memorial museum, duck ponds full of mallards, Tropical and Temperate glasshouses (the latter reminiscent of the one in Karlsruhe) and Fernery complete with rare nettles.
The park was being cleared of an obviously major party celebrating Chinese New Year and was full of stunning lanterns hung from every tree and large models of teapots and dragons.
Once it opened at 10am, we went into the beautiful museum and booked onto the Maori cultural experience.The exhibits were marvellous, with Dave taking particular satisfaction from the barbarous looking weapons from the Solomon Islander ancestors of the New Zealand Maoris.
 |
| Auckland War Memorial Museum |
The Cultural Experience by costumed performers included explanations and demonstrations of 'training' with balls and sticks for fitness, 'weapons' attacking and defence moves and lots of songs with beautiful (Hawaiian -like) harmonies and hand gestures, as well as a traditional Haka (of course).
We toured the Natural History section, with its Moa skeleton and stuffed kiwi amongst other things, an exhibition of Kiwi childhoods through the years and then, after a drink and cake stop in the stunning atrium, went into the Air New Zealand 75 year anniversary exhibition which was great fun. There was a minute silence at 12:51, as it as the anniversary of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake - we were in the shop by then, eyeing up the keyrings.
(The silence was mostly well observed, but there's always that one couple who are oblivious to the fact that they're having a very public conversation in a suddenly very quiet environment. Most amusing.)
The lovely winding road away from the museum was ruined by the harsh hill back into the city centre - through the University district...
(Jude is neglecting to mention how excited she was to suddenly find herself in the real-life street that she'd watched on TV so often....
...and is now even more excited to find out that it's still airing, and it's all on YouTube! - Dave)
...but we headed back to the harbour and decided to head out to Kelly Tarlton's Sealife. The free shuttle was a shark-shaped mini-bus and we'd miss the last one back to town, but the Sealife centre was quite nice. It included a Shackleton exhibition, and we saw Gentoo and King penguins and sting rays being fed, the penguins in an enclosed space which meant you didn't get overwhelmed by the smell. They had the original massive aquarium which you walk through a tunnel underneath, with sharks, turtles and lots of native fish; it also had a conveyor belt so you didn't even have to walk round, but being quite empty, we hopped off and watched the sharks quite a bit. Lots of glass, and curved glass at that, dim lighting and moving targets - not predicting a great photographic outcome, other than the green-screened photos taken of us on the way in!
 |
| We're Going To Need A Bigger Tow-Truck! |
 |
| Feeding Time for King Penguins |
In the evening we finally got to eat out in Ponsonby, after recommendations, principally from June Armstrong. With almost every type of eatery on offer, we headed into Ponsonby Central, a warren of small street-food like outlets including an Argentinian BBQ place and the self-proclaimed 'fishiest boys in town'! We plumped for the Melt Bar, and had gorgeous cheesey sandwich/burger concoctions (mine had blue cheese and Dave's had pulled pork - no surprises there), along with a couple of glasses of a lovely citrousy craft beer appropriately called Elixir. Rather than resort to Ben and Jerry's, we also had some of their ice-cream to finish and then walked back to the hotel through a park with some odd sculptures like bits of buried buildings.
 |
| Much-needed refreshment after a hard day exploring. |
 |
| Ponsonby Park-Art |
Tuesday February 23rd
This morning our pre-booked shuttle to Maui arrived before 7am - we were still in bed. Given that we'd phoned the day before to confirm, only to find that it hadn't been organised (despite having paperwork from the UK saying it was), and that we didn't need to leave the hotel before 10am, we'd already made a later booking so we sent them packing until later and said our goodbyes to Auckland.
All that remained was to pick up the camper van, have a few minor mishaps and hiccups in it, load up with food (then go back tot he depot, to get them to show us how to use the sat-nav), and we were off to the Northland area.
Dave's "Things we learned this time..." section
- If you think you've locked the front door before leaving, you probably have. Sorry Mum!
- Million-to-one chances, like meeting someone you know on the other side of the world, probably happen every day just like Terry Pratchett suggested.
- There's a locking latch on that cutlery draw, in the camper van, for a damn good reason. Use it.
No comments:
Post a Comment