TS1 and I started our long-awaited vacation Saturday night, flying from SFO to Auckland. A nice flight, if a bit bumpy and crowded, thumbs up to the Air New Zealand cabin crew for keeping everyone happy and comfortable and for having decent seat room on our 777-200. The on demand seat back video and music system was cool too, as I finally saw Knocked Up (funny and sweeter than expected) plus second viewings of Live Free or Die Hard and Simpsons Movie.
We arrived about 5 a.m. local time Monday morning, meaning no lines at customs or for rides and the hotel (right on the main drag in downtown) was aware of our early arrival hour so the room was ready. After a bit of rest we went out wandering, found an East Asian food court with some tasty choices, wandered more and saw the Sky Tower, a huge Santa over a big bookstore and found a cafe that gave free wireless with purchase (since the hotel charges NZ$30 a day for in-room broadband).
We had dinner at Gina’s Pizza and Pasta Bar. This highly-rated restaurant has a friendly, attentive Italian staff and the food was delicious; we shared a salad and pizza. The hotel concierge showed us a map and said it was maybe 15 minutes or so to walk. Er, maybe if you’re an Olympic class power walker but at more than two miles with some serious uphill climb we needed more like an hour, but I suppose burning the calories made the food go down better.
Today we hit the Auckland War Museum, had lunch at veg-friendly Revive and hit the Auckland Zoo for the afternoon. I completely underestimated the best way to get back to the bus after the museum, so add about 45 more minutes of shoe burning. By the time we got on the bus back from the zoo my feet were literally burning. But it was a good burning, and worth it. Took lots of pictures, will post soonish. Now off for some dinner!
(After dinner)
The museum was nicely done with a mix of Maori and English settler historical material. I have much respect for the Maori and other Melanesian people who crossed huge stretches of the Pacific in uncovered, human-powered oversized canoes! New Zealand was actually one of the last of their migrations as they only arrived here about 800 years ago.
On the bus ride there we had some discussion with a few other tourists about the best stop to get off and so when we left I was very confident that we should go down the hill in the opposite direction to catch the bus closer to our destination. After finding an area map–the museum is on one side of a big park and wooded area called the Auckland Domains–I was sure we should set off on what looked like a short path to the street and, obviously, a bus stop.
Very obvious, except totally wrong. The path veered off on a steep downhill through some pretty woods and didn’t get near a street for about a mile. There also, of course, was no bus stop for another long chunk of walking but we got to it before TS1 went back for one of those nasty looking Maori knives.
Revive was not that big a place and simply packed. Far more women than men in the restaurant, which is down near the harbor. Viv has this organic veg mushroom lasagne, yummy, and I had a three salad combo featuring bulghur.
The zoo was a lot more walking but filled with some beautiful animals. TS1 was captivated by the baby penguin and the family of orangutans. The lions were sleeping but it was feeding time for the giraffes and zebras, which were in the same large enclosure, and I thought the baby giraffe was cute.
We went to Star City for the buffet dinner at Fortuna. More yummy and now we’re both beat.
Auckland is a very cosmopolitan city, as you’d expect for the commercial center of a large island nation. In the downtown area, where we’ve spent most of our time, there are multiple restaurants on nearly every block (or superettes, convenience stores slightly larger than 7-11’s) and never are two of the same cuisine next to each other. The people, too, are a huge assortment and so far all friendly.
Up early tomorrow to catch a short flight to Queenstown almost all the way at the other end of New Zealand. We’ll have a rental car there, should be amusing driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road again since I’ve only had to do it once before, seven years ago in Australia.
BillSaysThis 