To kill time, we walked up and down the street, stopping to window shop and browse through a few shops. Our shopping desires were slaked from the previous afternoon's foray, and since dinner was imminent, there was nothing that either of us wanted to buy. It was near the close of business for many shops. The outdoor mall was filled with people scurrying about either picking up food for their dinner, or just on their way home. We returned to the restaurant at the appointed time to the same locked door. Our knocking produced the same young man, but this time he was dressed for business in an elegant butler's suit. He turned out to be the Matre'd, bartender, waiter, bus boy, and very probably the chef. After he took our coats, he showed us to the upstairs bar where we had a before dinner drink. We took our time and chatted about the day's events in order to give him a chance to make the final preparations. As we finished our drinks, he graciously led us back downstairs to our readied table. It was now apparent that the entire restaurant was a reconditioned house with several dining areas in the various rooms. We were in the living room next to the fireplace. The small room had only four tables and was decorated with plush velvet curtains. The intimate surroundings and soft lighting made for a romantic setting. We took our time as we enjoyed the soup and salad courses with the fresh baked bread and country fresh butter. Janet had venison for her entree and I had lamb medallions. Both had an excellent sauce and, as is the vogue, were surrounded by decorative cooked vegetables. These were accompanied by a bottle of New Zealand wine.
As we savored our meal, a second couple arrived and were seated next to us. The waiter had no trouble keeping us both satisfied and could probably have handled many more people at once.
The dessert cart was too tempting to pass up, so we splurged on our last night. Each bite served to seal our destiny of ending up on a diet once we returned to the States, but it all seemed worth it in our final flash of glory.
Our appetites sated, we perambulated back down the now deserted Cuba Street and returned to our hotel. It was not too late, so I tried to finish off a bottle of wine, but it tasted like vinegar compared to the wine we had at the restaurant, so I unceremoniously dumped it down the drain.
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Chapter 12, April 22: The Last Day
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Between sleeping late and a few attempts at packing, we managed to use up most of the morning in our room. As lunch time was quickly approaching, our stomachs led us to an 'American' restaurant along Oriental Parade that we had seen on several of our trips along the bay.
A few items in the decor suggested an American diner, and we expected hamburgers and french fries, but couldn't recognize anything on the menu. We both selected an innocuous meal and left a little wiser. Back at the hotel, we finally got serious about packing and had everything ready to go four hours before our plane was to leave from Wellington to Auckland. Our anxiousness made it appeared to us that we had exhausted all possible activities, so we decided to leave the hotel and wait at the airport.
After checking out and resolving a small problem with the prepaid reservation, we used our newly found shortcut to drive to the airport. As per the instructions that we received from the rental agent almost two weeks earlier, we parked our trusty car in the lot and gave the keys and a quickly sketched map with directions to the car to the Air New Zealand ticket agent. Since there was no possible way that the two of us could carry all of our luggage which had swollen with souvenirs, we got a cart and overloaded it with all of our belongings. We had trouble keeping the suitcases from sliding off until we entered the terminal and checked in the four largest bags.
The agent switched us from our scheduled 8:30 PM flight to one that left at 6:35 PM, and we still had to wait over an hour for it. We were not allowed to go to the gate until our plane was announced but had to wait in a common area near the counters. I did my usual pacing and snooping around the various shops and arcades while Janet worked on her cross-stitch project. When our plane was finally called, we went to the gate only to find a small turboprop plane sitting on a dark deserted runway. The look of horror on Janet's face indicated that she was very nervous about this mode of transportation. The lack of other passengers made us finally realize that we were at the wrong gate. Janet let out a sigh of relief and relaxed once we came to our 737 jet at the correct gate.
The efficient crew had no trouble serving the entire plane a small dinner during the one hour flight to Auckland. We arrived on schedule and took our carry-on luggage to the airport bus which transferred us to the international terminal that we had arrived at eleven days earlier. Because we took an earlier flight, we now had a much longer wait for our midnight flight. We paid our departure tax, then counted the left over currency to try figure out how to spend it so we wouldn't have to exchange it back to United States dollars. It seemed that we had enough to buy two T-shirts, but once we picked out two that we liked, we were over our available cash, and ended up charging them.
Even though we had a bite to eat on the plane, sitting in a restaurant seemed like a good way to kill some time. First we explored upstairs at the buffet, but it was overcrowded by a plane load of delayed passengers. The cafeteria on the ground level didn't seem to have any appetizing food, so we settled for two sodas.
Janet set-up a base in the waiting lounge by arranging our carry-ons around two chairs such that no one would ask if the seat was taken while I was wandering about. I would alternatively read a chapter of the book 'Player Piano' and then work off my nervous energy by looking about the airport in an attempt to relieve the boredom. On one of these jaunts, I noticed that some duty free stores sold English liquor at very low prices. I had no trouble selling Janet on what seemed like a worthwhile use of some of our remaining money since we still had not yet filled our liquor allotment. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, at 11:00 PM our plane was called. It didn't take long to get our passports stamped and turn-in some completed immigration forms before we were allowed to enter the departure lounge. In the duty free liquor shop we bought a one-and-one-eighth liter bottle of Gilbey's Gin for $7.00 NZ (about $4.00 US) and sat down in two empty seats as close to the gate as were available.
Right on time, the flight was called. We were one of the first people on board right after the people who always get on airplanes first to block the aisles. While we had both enjoyed our stay in New Zealand, it was now time to begin the long trip back home.
Janet was bound and determined to finish her cross-stitch project and worked on it for the entire twelve hour flight. I busied myself by attracting the attention of a two year old girl in the seat in front of us, and, when she fell asleep, watched the movie, 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'. The plane arrived on time and we passed through customs with minimal effort. We took the Super Shuttle home and simply threw the suitcases down in the living room before getting into the truck and heading for a dearly missed treat. We had a large pizza with onions, olives, and mushrooms at our favorite pizza restaurant, Lomeli's in Hermosa Beach. Not one bite of the pizza remained on the serving dish when we finally sat back in our seats to regale in our accomplishment. It was then that we realized that we were back in the United States and started to miss our New Zealand.
Epilogue.
No day now passes without each of us recalling at least one fond memory of our trip to New Zealand. I'm sure we drive our friends crazy as we are always bringing up the subject. We carefully edited all the pictures we took and mounted them in an album. More for our benefit than others, we like to show guests at our house the album and tell them about the trip in minute detail complete with the souvenirs we have in our living room: the Kauri letter holder, woven hall hanging, sheepskin rug, and 34,500 year old salad bowl.
The salad bowl was holding some antique kitchen implements until we realized that they were scratching the wood. Now we use it to hold unshelled nuts that we eat while watching TV. The sheepskin rug got mounted on a custom built frame of wood strips and now hangs from the wall not too far from the woven wall hanging made by Colleen Moore.
As we had promised Colleen, we researched the telephone books at the library and found the address of one of the people she needed for her family tree. Our picture from the MacKenzie ranch got published in the Beach Reporter and we sent a copy to our hosts with a Christmas letter. As we shop for groceries, we are now heightened to look for items that come from New Zealand. We purchase them both for the nostalgic thoughts and to help our friends in their depressed economy. Besides finding frozen lamb, kiwifruit, Granny Smith apples, and frozen green mussels, we have recently found feijoa fruits.
The Kauri seeds were planted according to the directions on the packet, but, to our dismay, none ever sprouted. I sent a letter to the manufacturer asking for replacement seeds, but it looks like we will have to wait for our next trip to New Zealand to purchase more and try again. We have yet to find a spinning wheel and wool for Janet. We are now on the mailing list, so we occasionally receive information from the local New Zealand Tourist Office. Recently, they had a slide presentation at the Torrance Marriott. After the presentation, Janet asked for and got a couple of stick pins with a kiwi bird on the end and found out about the restrictions on immigration.
Are we back in the United States? Only partially.
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Rec.Travel Library
Pacific Rim
New Zealand
By the same author:
The second trip to New Zealand (1991)
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Think back to when you were in grade school. Assuming you did not grow up in Australia or New Zealand, what was the area of the world you found most intriguing, the place you knew represented the truly different and special? If you don't remember, ask anybody under the age of 15, before hormones distort judgment for the next few decades. The answer will most likely be Australia, with New Zealand an add-on by those who had better teachers. In November, Nina (KE4PSV) and I made our first journey to VK and ZL, and this article will share some of the sights and experiences of that trip with you.
There are some preliminary factual matters I feel compelled to reveal before embarking on this adventure with you. The first is that this is not an inexpensive trip. As it happens, I had one free airline ticket thanks to dozens of years of paid-for holiday traveling. But the remaining costs are significant, though I believe it accurate to state that living expenses in VK and ZL are less for a North American than in Western Europe or the Caribbean. The airline tickets alone would be about $2500 per person -- half a fancy new radio or the money saved by delaying purchase of that new car by but one year! The second factor is that I have a job which allows me to take a month of annual vacation time without career consequences. The sacrifice of making a lower salary than in the private sector offers that advantage of flexibility. |
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