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Published: November 26th 2013
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Very grey start to our goodbye to Melbourne. According to our friend in New Zealand we are heading into sunshine so fingers crossed. Back on the airport bus at 8.30 (not sure many of the langham guests use the bus service!) and a pretty efficient trip out to the airport. As we went through the city a club was emptying out. Lots of young things in club attire. Gosh, did I feel old at that point !!!
The international terminal was absolutely chaos as we walked in! Lots of Asian travellers with sooooo much luggage. As many carrying boxes and boxes of apples???? Anyone know why because I can't find out and it's intriguing me. Interestingly of the 15 or so flights on the board there was only one to Auckland, one to queenstown and one to Los Angeles. The others were all to Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur etc. Not sure if that was a time of day thing or an insight into where most Aussie travellers are coming from.
We checked in at our (very quiet) Jetstar desk and headed through to grab some breakfast. What the check in
lady had failed to tell us (even when we told her it was our first time in Australia is you have to fill in a leaving card! And the queue to go through was huge!!!!!! I really don't understand what they are checking on the way out??? . Anyway leaving card duly checked we finally got our breakfast.
Flight passed uneventfully (apart from having a chewing gum popper sitting next to me for 3 and a half hours) and with another change of time zone we arrived in Auckland at 5.30pm. Sun was shining. Hooray!! Passport control queues worse than Sydney's had been but nowhere near as bad as America. Maybe 20 mins? By the time we got through the bags were doing a little carousel trip. Now at Sydney
You will remember I was a bit disappointed we weren't stopped by border patrol and sailed through without seeing anyone. Not so lucky in Auckland. Border patrol filming again but still not on TV. Interesting to know if the mammoth queues to get through will be on TV. Must have waited 45 minutes at least in queue chaos for our landing cards to be looked at, stamped
and the one word 'X-Ray' to be uttered. Suitcases through X-ray and finally on our way. We jumped on a shuttle bus which took us straight to our hotel,much cheaper than a taxi and easier than the city airbus that leaves you in the centre of town. On the bus we chatted to a lovely aboriginal lady who was visiting Auckland for a international Eco conference. She worked for parks Victoria and explained the difficulties in explaining aboriginal thinking about land in an organisation that is traditionally structured to deal with flora and fauna separately. She asked what had been my favourite part of our Australian trip so I was glad I had said Uluru, especially when she asked if I had climbed it and I expressed my general outrage that people felt the need to climb it still. That was before she told me her background!
We were staying at the Sofitel on the harbour. Very nice hotel although the first hotel we have stayed in that didn't have a six foot bed! Honestly!
By now it was 7.30 so we decided to go straight out as we were desperate for a beer and a bite to eat. Our friends had recommended a restaurant called soul but it looked a bit upmarket for a couple of scruffy travellers so we decided to save that till we are back on Friday (although we tried to book on our way back to the hotel and it was fully booked so it must be good). Instead we stopped at a pub called degree which specialised in hot stone cooking. Really lovely and just what we needed.
Back in our hotel by 10.00 so a long soak and an intention to catch up on my blog posting. But 5 days of limited access in Melbourne meant that within 10 mins by ipad/iPhone icloud syncing of photos had used up all our limit. Oops!
So instead I finished my Jack Reacher.
Tomorrow we are off to Waiheke island to meet up with some friends who emigrated out here about 5years ago. It will be really nice to have someone else to chat to apart from each other!!!
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