Kia ora! That means "welcome" in te reo Maori, the Maori language, and you see it everywhere here. As I started driving today I got to thinking about how in a way, the names of the towns here are like in the US, where you have a mix of English name towns and Maori named towns, so you have Hamilton and Rotorua, and back home you have Newton and Wichita (English and Native American).
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| My dad said I looked happy when I sent this photo from the Denver airport...well, duh Dad, I'm traveling! |
Anyways, let's go back to Thursday afternoon. After saying "see ya next year" to everyone at work, I headed back home to do the last of the chores (garbage) and grab my suitcase. I got to the airport somewhat early and spent a while walking around. All I can say is thank goodness I wasn't flying through Dallas or on American Airlines! DFW was in the middle of a ground stop due to storms and all the flights there on American were canceled. There was even a flight from Salt Lake City heading to Dallas that got rerouted to Wichita after circling over north Texas 7 times. They had been in the air for 7 hours by the time they got to Wichita! But the good news was I was heading the Denver on United so all was good!
I got to Denver, picked up my suitcase, and then headed to the check-in counter to see if I could move my flight from Denver to LAX for the following day. The way it was set, I had just a 2h 40m layover in LA, and I was a bit nervous about it because it was a hair on the short side for an international flight and I don't know my way around LAX. I was able to move my flight from 4pm to 11:30am and all was good. I headed to the hotel for a good night's sleep (so rare before flying). The following morning I headed back to the airport, checked my bag through to Auckland, and found my gate (it was still there!) before wandering a bit. My flight to LAX was good and when we landed in LA a check airman came on over the loudspeaker to congratulate our First Officer on his first flight on an Airbus A321neo. It made me laugh because that is obviously not something you tell the people on your plane before taking off ("hey, so your First Officer on this flight is brand new to this airplane! Give him some encouragement!"), but afterwards it is all good.
And let me tell you, after landing in LA, all I can say is I am soooo glad I had the extra time. That airport is a mess and difficult to get around. Now, some of the problem may be due to construction happening at one of the terminals. But what that meant was to get from Terminal 6 to the International Terminal, you had to take a shuttle bus and then you're walking through corridors and you have no idea where you're going. After grabbing food I started a sort of routine of walking up and down the terminal, and then sitting down for a while with a book, rinse and repeat. And then they started getting ready to board, and I realized I was at the wrong gate. I was on NZ5, not NZ3! That meant I had another hour!
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| Relaxing on my SkyCouch. I'm not sure in any other airline besides Air New Zealand does this, but it is literally the reason I chose to fly with them. You got a little pad and 2 big pillows, plus the 3 little pillows and blankets for your seats. There were footrests that came out to fill in the pitch between the seats, and a belt so you could stay strapped in while laying down. Since it's only about 5' long, you still have to curl up a bit, but still pretty comfortable. |
When I finally got on my plane I was excited to checkout this SkyCouch I had reserved. Basically, for an extra $1000, I was able to book all 3 seats in the row, which allowed me turn it into a bed. Normally, I wouldn't shell out for something like that, but this is a special adventure with special funding, and I knew I would have a full day once I landed in Auckland because the flight was set to land at 6:05am. And it worked out great! I watched a few episodes of The Pitt (loved it, but I'm also an ER girl) and then settled down for the night, where I actually got some restful sleep on a plane for a change. We arrived like 40 mins early. I picked up my bag (once again NZ3 was throwing me off because I ended up at the wrong baggage carousel) and headed through their strict customs/declarations area. Because they want to keep stuff out of NZ that could cause the islands harm, they inspected my hiking gear (boots and trekking poles). If they hadn't passed their muster, they would have gone into their biohazard lab and been cleaned.
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| They have a pool (harbor water) right on the harbor where you can wade or swim laps, with the whole view of Auckland behind you. The bridge on the left is a draw bridge for the boats in the harbor. |
From there I headed to catch a bus into Auckland and then walked to my hotel. Amazingly enough, I was able to get checked into my hotel for a $60NZ fee (roughly $34). This meant I was able to shower and get myself cleaned up before heading out to explore. I walked a lot of miles around the harbour (with a U). On one pedestrian street there was a large Christmas tree, and a street performer doing a balancing and juggling fire act. He got a kid from the crowd to help him out with some things and you'll never guess what her name was...Arwen. An Arwen right in New Zealand! Perfect! Eventually, I realized I was hungry and found a food hall. I love food halls and this one is a doozy. A huge variety of foods from Argentinean (I had empenadas for lunch) to Italian (supper) to Greek and Chinese and Korean and burgers and Mexican and just dumplings. So many options! I will be going back there and trying others when I am back in Auckland at the end of my trip. After getting some food, I felt I was ready to keel over, so I went back and took a nap. A series of 30m alarms, turned into roughly a 2h long nap. I got up at 5:30, went to the SkyTower, which is their tall Space Needle-like tower. The views of the city and harbor were great! Then it was time for supper and bed.
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| New Zealand is apparently known for their boat and yacht building. |
This morning I got up and after showering, wandered to a Woolworths to get something for breakfast (banana bread). Then I packed up and started the mile or so walk to the car rental place. Driving was something I was somewhat nervous about because I've never driven on the wrong side of the road before. In fact, I've only ever experienced being on the wrong side during a brief ride on a bus into Dublin and back to the airport on a long layover, and that was it. I did remember what side to get into (win!). I did very quickly find out that having your steering wheel on the opposite side of the the car also means your windshield wipers and turn signals are swapped. Today I probably turned on my windshield wipers about 50 times when I meant to turn on my turn signal. Once on the roads though, it wasn't so bad because you just go with the flow of traffic. It wasn't until later when I was on smaller, less busy roads that I had to think more about what side I had to be driving on.
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| The area of Pirongia Forest Park in the background. |
But even with my driving worries, I made it safely to Pirongia Forest Park. The plan was to do a shorter nature trail (with signs!) and then try one of the longer trails up towards Ruapane summit, one of a series of extinct volcanoes in the area. I knew from the beginning that actually making it up Ruapane was a long-shot. I was short on water due to not having had the chance to fill up my water bladder in my hiking bag, so I only had 750 mL. And since I hadn't been to a grocery store since getting my car, I hadn't had a chance to get snacks, and every hiker knows snacks and water are the two most important things for a hike. The nature walk part was pretty and easy. I then started up the trail to Ruapane, which started with about 100 steep steps and some mud. The steps would come back every once in a while, but at other times it was fairly flat. But over time I started to feel the fact I was conserving water and didn't have snacks. And after sitting down to rest twice in a short period of time, and knowing that the worst part of the trail was yet to come, I made the decision to turn around. I was probably about 2/3rds of the way there, but it's better not to be dumb on day 2 of your trip.
I made my way back down and then headed towards Hamilton, my home for the next two nights. I stopped at the PakNSave for some snacks and food on the way and heard Lorde's Royals on the radio in the store which was perfect (she's a Kiwi). I did not buy any kiwi at the store. Tomorrow is the Waitomo Cave and Hobbiton!
P.S. Please know if you find typos or errors, that's because I don't go back and proofread these.
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