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Published: February 6th 2009
Well I finally made it - this is the story so far...
After quite a lot of final preparation and running around - bag weighing and last minute checks made it to the airport in plenty of time. Left Neal and Sophie at the departure gates at 8pm and started my solo adventure via duty free.
Flight was delayed by an hour so sorry for those of you senijging me throughts at 10pm... at this point I was strapped in with nowhere to go. Sat next to an elderly couple who went into fits of giggles every time an announcement came on in Arabic - on an Emirates flight this was fairly often. My TV system crashed and I was too shy to press the light for help so I entertained myself watching the comings and goings of a crowd at altitude. One passenger... tall bloke looked at bit like Billy Connolly (i.e. lots of grey hair and a beard) stumbled up the aisle and promptly collapsed next to us. I sat there praying that a) he wouldn'e throw up and b) he wouldn't die (no particular order). Anyway he strumbled back to his seat down the front after a little lay down. The rest of the flight was uneventful - the food was grim (roast chicken thing) but at least it kept me from starving at 40,000 feet.
After the late take-off the arrival in Dubai was a mad rush to meet the interconnecting flight. Nice airport... shiny floors and good signposts (what more can you want!). This 12 hour flight was never going to be much fun, but I must admit even with 200+ films, games, music and TV it was still rubbish. Saw 3 films I didn't get around to in the cinema - 1) Righteous Kill, DeNiro / Pacino 2) Ghost Town, Ricky Gervais and finally Hancock, Will Smith.
Arrived Melbourne on time and nipped into the airport for an hour... nice to stretch those legs. I seem to have done something nasty to my knee (which still hurts). Melbourne to Auckland flight was a breeze... watch Monsters Inc. I LOVE that film! Just slightly better than the film was the stunning view of New Zealnd as we descended towards Auckland. It just takes your breath away - everone needs to see this view for themselves it is just incredible.
Made it our of the airport very efficiently - by the time I'd made it through passport control and had my 6 month vistor visa stamp my bag was already going round the baggage carousel. Confession time... I'm blaming sleep deprivation but I actually said hello out loud to my luggage when I saw it. Thankfully no-one heard me and I slipped away. After some internal debate about whether Fox's Glacier Fruits were a banned food substance (strict import rules) I exited through the nothing to declare gate and headed off to find a cab.
Cab took me to the hotel - about 30mins and I checked into my hotel. Very nice room with a nice big double bed. Had a shower and then headed out to explore my surroundings (must not sleep until at least 8pm). I walked the length of Queen Street to downtown, which is where I found the harbour. Queen Street is a typical city high street with starbucks, McD, BKing, Phone shops and more banks than the Queen would need. Lots of E Asian food places, I will not go short of sushi while I am here!
The harbour is very lively - its 5pm here and its full of commuters heading out to Devonport. I picked up some leaflets to pick some trips. Got myslef an icecream and sat on a bench in the sun taking in the sights. My ice cream melted all doen my arm and over my trousers - traveller tip no.1: If you are going to pack wet wipes and carry them half way round the world... when you get there - don't leave them in your hotel room.
So with sticky hands I make my way back up Queen Street to my hotel. It os nearly 6pm and I'm getting hungry. I got as far as the room service menu and after talking myself out of that, managed to talk myself into having a little lay down... so much for staying awake until 8pm. Oops.
Woke up at 3am - treated myself to a cup of tea and listen to the radio. Thank goodness for NZ night time talk radio or I never would have got back off to sleep. It was Marjorie that finally did it for me... she rang up to ask the presenter to announce the telephone number more often because she had spent far too long looking in all of her address books for it when she wanted to call in to talk about police policy... wow what a woman - that was enough to scare me into sleep.
Woke at 9am... that's more like it! Got myself ready to go out and decided that today I was going to buy a ticket for the Auckland Exporer, hop-on-hop-off bus that goes to all the highlights of the city. The street seemed quite quiet for a Friday morning and it wasn't until I got to the bus stop that I realised where everyone was... its a bank holiday today and the bus is only running a limited service. So that will have to be postponed for another day - with Plan B in hand I headed back down to the harbour and booked myself on a Harbour Cruise. Had a couple of hours to kill so wandered down the the Viaduct Harbour which is the posh bit and got myself some lunch.
Sat upstairs on the cruiser to take in the sights and some sunshine. The cruise took me over to see the Harbour Bridge which is where (like Sydney) they do bridge walking and also its famous for bungy jumping (not on my list). Then sailed past the shores of Devonport, past the naval base and over to Rangitoto Island. Might go back there on another trip... if I have time.
After the cruise I ducked in here to update my blog... no pics today but I'll see if I can figure out how to put some on for next time.
Anyway... basically I'm having a fab time, its 24c and sunny.
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Regina
non-member comment
You made it!
Sounds like a long long trip! Bet you're glad that part is out of the way. You're not missing anything in London except more snow!