Janet found the airline magazine in the seat pocket, and, while browsing through it noticed that an exhibit was being shown at the art gallery in Auckland. We would have some time later that day, so we mentally added this stop to our list of things to do.
They fed us a pitiful dinner. Afterwards I stretched my legs by going to the rear of the plane and took out my contact lenses. When I returned to our seats, I convinced Janet to exchange her aisle seat for my middle seat, and then tried to rest. I managed a few hours of sleep interrupted by moderate turbulence, while Janet stayed up to watch the movie, 'Working Girl'.
At this time the young gentleman in the window seat woke-up and started as much of a conversation as the lack of sleep would allow. We found out he was flying from London to Auckland with only the stop in Los Angeles for a grand total of 23 hours in the air.
The hours passed slowly. When it appeared that a few people were stirring, they served us a breakfast which was on par with dinner. We felt obligated to pick-over what looked edible. This also served the purpose of killing more time.
During the flight, when they were not in use for a movie or other presentations, the movie screens and TV monitors on the plane were connected to the navigational computer and displayed a map showing our progress towards New Zealand by indicating our position on a map with a little red plane. Next, it would show our altitude, the outside temperature, airspeed, and distance traveled, both in English and metric units.
We could see that we were nearing the International Dateline, so we were very near to our destination. The final hour seemed the longest, but we arrived in Auckland at 5:00 AM on Tuesday, April 11 almost one hour ahead of schedule.
In spite of our luggage taking its sweet time to arrive on the conveyer belt, we were through customs in a flash. The customs agent got a kick out of my claiming sporting equipment - a diving mask, and food - a small jar of mustard being brought into the country, but I was following the customs declarations to the letter.
We scouted around the Auckland Airport, and, failing to find the Southern Cross Car Rental booth, I went over to the information booth while Janet watched over the luggage. I didn't know it for the few minutes I had to wait in line, but the lady from the car rental company was directly behind me in line. We were quickly introduced by the information agent when I reached the front of the line.
She was ready to take us to the rental car office right away. We were anxious to get the trip underway and did not want to wait in the long lines at the airport Bank of New Zealand branch. We could always exchange some traveler's checks at a bank in downtown Auckland, so we decided to wait to exchange our money. It wasn't until a few hours later that we regretted this decision.
The lady packed us in a small van and drove us a mile or so to their office. While signing-out the rental car, the friendly agent could not contain herself any longer and asked why we wanted to spend our honeymoon in New Zealand instead of some interesting place such as Disneyland. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean.
After taking our small red Fiat hatchback on a practice lap around the left side of the block in the still deserted industrial park, we headed towards downtown Auckland. With maps in hand, we felt well prepared to brave the morning traffic. We made a few wrong turns and missed a few streets that we wanted because they were nearer to each other than we figured from looking at the map. Our problems were compounded by the fact that street signs and traffic rules were different from what we were used to, and it was not easy to find first gear on the transmission. Several false starts in third gear brought glaring eyes from anxious commuters behind us, but no horns.
We were forced to take a few side streets, but eventually reached our target, the Auckland City Art Gallery on Kitchener Street. To our chagrin, the only parking available was timed, (i.e., 20 minutes, 40 minutes, etc.) or metered. We circled the block passing many banks whose locked doors held the local currency we desperately needed to feed the parking meters. One such meter was moved by our predicament, and presented us with every Californian's dream. Directly across from the art museum we found a parking meter waiting for us to park in front of it with the pointer indicating 34 minutes remaining on its timer. The banks would not open for another hour, but rather than just sit there, we decided to challenge the light drizzle and walk around for an half-an-hour and then return to the car to move it to a timed spot to wait for the banks' opening.
This was just enough time to circle the block once and return to the car. We did some window shopping and compared currency exchange rates at a few banks. Janet felt Mother Nature call and went into a public facility which she reported was spotless. We made mental notes as to the route we would take to the bank and several shops to purchase a few necessities that we had already realized that we had forgotten to pack.
When we returned to it, the meter had realized our situation, and kept its indicating hand firmly pointing to the 34 minute mark. This solved a number of problems, so we now took our time as we wandered around Queen Street waiting for the ASN bank to open at 9:00 AM.
We were one of the first customers through the doors of the bank and the first at the foreign exchange window. We exchanged $225 US dollars for $367.20NZ at a rate of 1.632 to one. On the way out of the bank, we asked the doorman/security guard to recommend a restaurant for breakfast. He was a congenial sort of a chap and took pleasure in describing his favorite place to us. We hiked over to it, but did not find it to our liking since it looked too much like a cafeteria. As luck would have it, we were right across the street from the Visitors Information Centre, so we went in, bought some postcards, and asked there for a breakfast spot. They directed us to another nearby restaurant which suffered the same fate as the first. Putting our appetites on hold for a minute, we walked back along Queen Street and shopped for the few items that we needed. We bought shampoo at a chemist's; and an umbrella and camera batteries at Dekka, a New Zealand department store much like our Woolworth's. To the price of the purchases the ten percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) was added. This sounded outrageous even though we were accustomed to paying six-and-one-half percent in California.
As we walked through a tiny mall which led away from Queen Street, we found a carvery, called the Beef Baron, where they served sliced-to-order sandwiches. This sounded good to us since our stomachs told us it was lunch time even though our watches said it was 9:30 AM. Janet had roast beef, while I had my first taste of New Zealand lamb. We both liked it very much, but it was not enough for the voracious new husband. The proprietor was able to discern that we had just entered the country and asked about our itinerary. He gave us a friendly welcome to the country, then disappeared into the back to complete another chore.
After dropping our purchases at the car, we spent the time we had before the 10:00 AM opening of the art museum by taking a walk around the adjacent Albert Park which separated the museum from the Auckland University. Our trusty cameras 'found their mark', and, even though the flowers had closed-up for the fall season at the flower clock, we managed to get some memorable photographs. Besides, we were so tired that we would shoot anything.
When we returned to the museum entrance, there was a short line of school children and other lucky people waiting to enter. In a few minutes, they opened and we paid our admission of $7.25 each and spent a good hour-and-a-half looking at the exhibit entitled 'From Monet to Picasso' which was touring the globe as part of the Reader's Digest Collection. Bleary-eyed, we said good-bye to our trusty parking meter, which still had 34 minutes on it, and pointed the car north over the Auckland Harbour Bridge into the Northland.
We passed through several small towns, but did not stop until we were north of the town of Te Hana looking for 'The Retreat', our bed-and-breakfast inn. Although in the condition we were in, it sometimes came out as bread-and-bekfast inn.
We knew we were close because we had traveled the indicated miles on the directions. We stopped at two houses each on a small ranch, but neither was our quest. Nobody was home at either location to give us directions to the B&B, so we drove back to Te Hana and asked for directions at a small grocery store. One friendly lady knew exactly where we wanted to go and gave us explicit directions. We drove to the indicated house, one we had already passed several times, and drove up the gravel driveway to park near the house.
It looked deserted, but after pounding wearily on the front door for several minutes, it opened to reveal Tony Moore. He and his wife operated the B&B on a shoestring budget. He showed us to our room on the second floor where we made a not-so-serious attempt at unpacking before we both plopped down on the bed and fell fast asleep.
|
Chapter 2, April 12: Whangarei and the Bay of Islands
|
Having once traveled across many time zones and the International Dateline before, I knew that it could be almost any time. All that I knew for sure was that it was dark. I laid still for a few minutes to see if my body would demand more sleep, but when it became apparent that I was awake for the day, I gave up trying to go back to sleep. Not wanting to awaken my wife of three days (or is that only two days, since we passed over the International Dateline?), I quietly reached for my wristwatch which I had placed on the floor next to the bed the day before. It showed 6:00 AM. Straining mentally in a still incomplete state of consciousness, I finally figured that I had slept for sixteen hours straight. I continued to lay there in the pre-dawn darkness waiting for the first rays of the New Zealand sun to greet the day, and giving Janet the opportunity to break the family sleeping record.
I maintained my motionlessness for a full hour wondering what our vacation would be like, hoping that we would be able to: meet some friendly sheep up close, find good places to SCUBA dive, eat local food that was as good as we had heard, and a number of other items that we had been reading about in the travel brochures, when the sun began to creep up over the horizon filling the room with a faint glow, and gradually, enough light to see by. The first thing that I noticed was the dainty drapes being wafted ever so gently by the cool morning air through a slightly opened window near our bed. The air was like a breath of air from heaven. It seemed to beckon us to stop wasting our precious vacation time and make some progress checking off things on our list of things to see.
Janet began to stir, and I officially welcomed her to the land of the awake with a kiss. I'm sure she toyed with the idea of returning to sleep, but since we already heard movement in the rest of the house, we knew it was time to drag ourselves out of bed.
Since I had a head start, I showered first, and spent a few minutes trying to see the water go down the drain 'backwards'. The shadows of the shower stall prevented me from making my observation. While I was shaving I filled the sink and then let the water run out all at once. Sure enough, the water swirled in a clockwise direction. I guess simple things amaze simple minds.
After getting the voltage converter from one of the suitcases, I used it to plug in the hairdryer to the power strip located near the bed. |
|
