Auckland to Larkspur, Colorado

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January 4, 2008 / Auckland to Larkspur, Colorado

Well, this is it, I guess. The end of our grand adventure. We’re just going to spend the day mostly killing time until our flight leaves at 11:00 p.m. New Zealand time. We arrive in L.A. at 2:00 p.m. on the 4th. Weird that we arrive before we’ve even left!

We headed out to Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World and saw some pretty neat stuff. Kelly Tarlton was New Zealand’s most celebrated undersea explorer and treasure hunter. He did his work mostly in the 1970s, photographing underwater creatures and finding shipwrecks full of gold. Sort of like a mix between Jacques Cousteau and Ballard, the Titanic guy. The main attraction is a transparent tunnel that is 120 feet long. It is on a moving walkway and the circuit takes you past moray eels, huge lobsters, sharks, and stingrays all swimming around next to you and over your head. There’s also some interesting displays of Scott’s camp and information on his failed expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole.

The girls wanted to do some dedicated souvenir shopping so we headed to Auckland’s outlet mall called DressMart. We got there about 4:20 p.m. and quickly learned that everything closed up at 5:00. Those shopping hours would NOT fly in the United States! It didn’t matter much, though, because there wasn’t really anything souvenir-ish here. The clerks all said the best shopping would be found at the airport, oddly enough, so that’s where we went next. We did see a shop called “Colorado!”

We turned the car in, checked our luggage, and went through customs. Then up to the shopping arcade for dinner and waiting. The girls found hats, tee shirts, etc. and Karl and I got a few things, too. We managed to spend the rest of our NZ money, so we didn’t have to trade anything in. The exchange rate really suffered just during our short visit.

We got our seats on the plane, got the girls relatively settled, and began some serious sleeping. All except Karl, that is. Poor guy cannot sleep on planes, so he watched movies and wandered around. I think he and one flight attendant were the only ones awake on the whole plane (and it was a FULL flight). My second Lunesta did the trick and I woke up with only about 2 ½ hours left in the flight. I quickly started watching the “Nanny Diaries” movie, but didn’t get to finish it before we landed at LAX.

We had only about a 2.5 hour wait for our Frontier flight to Denver which was a lot shorter than going out. That was uneventful except for a little bumpiness and we were at home by about 11:15 p.m. on January 4th! Whew! We had a 12 hour rest, waking up at noon the next day. I think it will take us awhile to adjust, though, because all four of us were up until about 3 a.m. the next night, wide awake and hungry.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about our journey and checking out the pictures. We’ve got many more stories and photos; give a shout if you’d like to see more!
Happy 2008 to you all!
Love,
Diane, Karl, Kathryn, and Megan Roscoe

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Photos

Giant Lobsters
These guys were close to three feet long!

Sunrise on the Plane
The sun rising over the wing out our window

Karl on the Plane
Check out his tired, bloodshot eyes