New Zealand Discoverer
Day Eighteen – 14 March 2012 – The Longest Day (41 hours long)
Weather: Partly cloudy, 22 in Auckland
Ahhhh…another solid eight hours sleep
I didn’t bother with breakfast. I filled up on cough syrup, decongestants, anti-histamine, cough drops, throat spray and nasal spray. I’m ready for my 41 hour day. I sat around my room, watched Karate Kid (the new one) and made as much use of my $30 internet as possible. I managed to get the last two episodes of The Walking Dead which will be great if the entertainment system craps out on any of the airplanes.
By 11 am, I’m packed, weighed in at 23.1 kg and I roll it down to the porters to watch for a few hours. They have been great.
I go straight up Albert St to Victoria. It’s not hard to find the Sky Tower and I was quite surprised at how small its footprint is. It takes up less than a quarter of a block.
I go in to the building next to it and they direct me downstairs through the gift shop. (Always a good ploy). I go down the escalators and what’s sitting at the entrance to the gift shop?
No, not the bungee jumping shop.
Well, yes, but I passed that by.
It was a Lord of the Rings shop. Well, a Weta shop with LOTR stuff. I take pictures of Gollum and that. One thing I noticed about New Zealand was that there was almost nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. A costume shop in Queenstown, the Hobbiton site which I didn’t see and this WETA shop. That was it. No trinkets, souvenirs or anything.
I go get my $25 ticket for the ride up. It only takes about 18 seconds to get to the top. There’s a glass bottom in the elevator too – just to freak out the kids that get stuck in the middle on a crowded elevator.
I get out on the observation deck and notice a sign that says the higher Sky Deck is closed for maintenance (as of two days ago). Darn. I take my time walking around the observation deck getting a few pictures on this magnificently clear bright day.
Then I notice a sign that indicates that a jumper is about to jump.
Woohoo! The deck is nearly deserted so I’m able to get a front row centre spot against the glass and get some great video of a girl hanging in mid air a few metres from the glass before she drops.
The other jumpers didn’t do that so I think they were playing with her. Got a couple of great still shots of more jumpers. It seems that it’s not a real bungee jump as such but just a controlled drop.
I think my doctor would have approved of that. My heart is in good shape. It’s just my neck that keeps me from real bungee jumping.
I stay up for a while then I go down and pick up a fridge magnet and some manuka honey chocolates. I don’t have a lot of weight to play with in my luggage.
What, with all that extra nip I’m importing.
I have 2 1/2 hours more to kill so I start walking Queen street up to the theatres then down again. I drop into a convenience store to buy some chocolate bars for my nieces and the cashier looks at me when I plop them all down in front of him. He says “these are for you?”
God, no. They’re gifts, I say.
I don’t think he believed me.
Really, dude, I’m trying to lose those last 20 lbs, not put 20 more on.
So off I go down to the dock and find a wharf full of things going on. (I just followed the crowds). It was 2 pm by the time I found that so I didn’t have a lot of time to investigate.
I go back to the hotel and pick up my luggage from the porters and go into the washroom to change into flight clothes, only to find the only bathroom in NZ that doesn’t have a disabled stall, so I had to leave my bag outside while I changed.
Now, wouldn’t that be a sight if my luggage started to wheel itself away.
I go out to sit and wait for the Super Shuttle and find that my internet is still counting down. Cool. Got another half hour pinched out of it. That makes it midnight at home so I won’t need to bother with the net at the airport since they’re all asleep anyway. (Internet at Auckland airport is about $10 for 45 minutes, $15 for 90 minutes and $20-something for 4 hours).
The Super Shuttle shows up on time and I’m off. It takes 40 minutes to get to the airport in mid-afternoon traffic. I wouldn’t have wanted to do this at 5 pm. Most of the distance was on city streets and I can see them being choked with traffic after 5. Arriving at the airport for a flight on a 777 (500 people) with 2 hours to spare didn’t strike me as sensible.
Granted, there wasn’t a sole in the line and the ticket agent kept saying “you’re a tad early, dear.” But I’d rather sit and read at the gate for a couple hours than stand in a panic in the line like I did in Peru.
My luggage weighed in at 23.2 kg on her scales and she didn’t say anything. Then she asked for my carry-on to weigh.
Cool. That explains why I don’t see a lot of people with huge carry-ons walking around. They enforce the 7 kg limit. Forgot to check to see what it weighed in at but it certainly isn’t more than 7 kg.
Awesome, Air New Zealand. More airlines should be doing this. The size of carry-ons is getting downright ridiculous. (Air Canada finally imposed it in 2014 and I love it)
I check out the shops and start spending my last few NZ dollars on chocolate for the nieces. I’m down to 2.90 and I want a Coke so bad now…but they’re 3.90. Wonder if they’d notice a Canadian loonie masquerading as a 2 dollar NZ Coin. LOL. Guess I’ll use my Visa and buy 2.
I walk around for a bit to find the gates but the shops are separated from the gates and they announce when the gates open (usually an hour before hand). So, only the flights for the next hour are listed.
The rest of them just say “Relax.”
Baaaaaaaaahahahahaha. That is just so funny. Love the Kiwi humour. I think any New Zealander would have a great time in Newfoundland. We think so much alike. Must be an island thing.
My gate opens up an hour before departure and as I go down, I see a sign that has listed Auckland Airport as being voted one of the top ten airports in the world. Hard to believe it managed that with pay internet, but other than that, it’s a great little airport with a lot of shops. Not a whole lot of seating but nothing stops you from going to a gate. It just might not be yours. But you can sit there for awhile then double check the board 2 hours before departure to see if it lists a gate or tells you to Relax.
My gate is absolutely deserted when I get down there. I sit and wait knowing I will be one of the first on once they call row numbers – I’m in 66D – the last row with the crew sitting behind me.
We wait for the assisted people to go aboard then people with small children and there is a little parade of parents and young children going past us. I’ve never seen so many young children on a flight.
I double check to make sure I have my ear plugs.
Row numbers are called and I happily walk the whole length of the plane only to see a head sitting in my seat. I get up there and a fairly large man with his wife and a baby in the middle seat said they were told the row was free.
I show them my boarding pass and the flight attendant tells me she’ll try to find me another seat. No problem, I say, sitting down and hoping she’s successful. The gentleman next to me is in desperate need of some deodorant. I’m guessing he worked up a sweat taking care of the kid and the stroller and all that. Wearing a fleece probably didn’t help.
Everyone gets on board and the attendant comes up to the man in the seat in front of me and tells him he can move down then she looks at me and tells me I can move up one seat.
Purrfect.
I sit down and the man next to me thinks the video screen is a touch screen. I show him the remote but he seems to have a real problem with the controls. He turns it off at one point (by accident) and tries to get it to go back on by touching the screen. He eventually gets in to see Man on Fire.
After we take off, I look up Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Well, there’s 2 hours of my life I won’t get back. As much as I like spy thrillers, holy cow, at some point you have to tell us what the heck is going on. I even went to Wiki to read the synopsis after I landed and the plot is so convoluted, it’s near impossible to follow. There are some books that simply should never be movies.
We get dinner an hour into the flight which has been quite bumpy. The turbulence from the back seat feels like it moves the plane from side to side instead of up and down like I usually feel in the mid-section of the plane.
I’m thinking I won’t be going for a back seat again.
Dinner is pretty good with a delicious premium plum ice cream. I pull out my smart phone and watch The Thing and by 11 pm, I’m ready to sleep. I stuff in my ear plugs and set my watch to 3 am Vancouver time before I nod off. The turbulence fells like it might lull me to sleep.
I check my watch at 6 am, 8:20, 9:10 and the lights wake me at 10:30.
Holy cow. I slept seven and a half hours on a plane despite the constant turbulence. Even Mr. Remote next to me managed to snore for a bit and we managed to share the arm rest equally. At one point in the night, I heard a baby squealing (well, I think it was the 3 or 4 year old a few seats ahead) but the ear plugs dulled the noise enough that I barely noticed. The seat belt sign dinging also didn’t wake me this time around.
My flight socks did a great job too. The only thing I found was that my tail bone ached a couple times and I think being completely reclined wasn’t helping, but the seat wouldn’t go forward without help and I couldn’t move without waking Mr. Remote. So, I stuck it out.
Breakfast is scrambled eggs (a little creamy) and sausage with yogurt and OJ. By the time they are cleaned up, we’re ready to land.
Now I remember why my flight from Hong Kong to Toronto seemed so short. You sleep through it all.
I have to move back to my seat for landing and we touch down in the land of free internet.
Yeah, I haul out my smart phone and check my emails. LOL
Customs in Vancouver is a cinch. They have automated terminals where you input your customs card and your passport and it spits out a photocopy. Then you either get directed to your luggage or to a customs agent. I get sent to my luggage.
I’m sure it was the last one out. I roll out the bag past customs which tells me to go on.
It’s not even 2 pm. My head thinks it’s 10 am, but doesn’t care that it’s 10 am Wednesday instead of 10 am Thursday.
Or something like that.
Oh, today is Pi day too – 3.14 (March 14th). And oddly enough, today is 41 hours long for me.
I follow the Ground Transportation signs to wait for my hotel shuttle, thinking I had just missed it and voila! It pulls up just as I sit down. I’m at the Hampton Inn by 2 pm and a very helpful clerk checks me in and tells me how I can get to the Richmond Mall to help walk off the flight. I drop my “heavy” luggage in my room and take off looking for the train to the mall. It’s not hard to find the Bridgeport terminal and I take the train to Richmond Mall. I spend an hour walking back and forth, had a Mozza burger, picked up a muffin and found the train back to Bridgeport.
Then I cuddle up in a nice high bed and turn on the tube to find like 60 channels of TV!! Woohoo. That and free internet.
And an ice machine down the hall.
I may never leave.
***************
Day Nineteen – The shortest day. (Well, not as short as 24 Feb which just went *poof*)
15 March 2012
It got a solid night’s sleep and I go down at 6:30 for the shuttle to the airport only a few minutes away. Inside, AC uses automatic agents which are so very cool. They print out all my boarding passes and my luggage tags.
Best part, it didn’t charge me for my second bag.
I wander the shops, resisting the urge to buy a t-shirt that I’d have to carry and settle on a fridge magnet and a ginger ale. The Plague is hanging with me still, starting a pretty good cough now.
My flight left for Ottawa on time and I was able to watch J. Edgar with Leonardo Dicaprio. They did an amazing job on his make-up as an older man. Then I watched an old one called The Score and the flight ended with like 5 minutes left in the movie.
With my luck, my next flight won’t offer it. LOL
Ottawa is a small airport and I have little choice for dinner. I settle on pizza which is cold in the centre. Internet is free and I check on my flight to find it’s 35 minutes late departing. Then it’s on time.
Then paramedics walk up to the door with a stretcher.
Oh, I hope he didn’t throw up in my seat.
Guess they thought the medical emergency would take longer to deal with but they took passenger off and hung around talking to officials so I guess it wasn’t a huge emergency. We board on time and take off for St. John’s. I check the movies and find The Score available then spend 10 minutes fast forwarding to the spot where I left off.
Worth it. Great ending.
Then I haul out my smart phone and watch Final Destination 5. The movie ends (warning: spoilers) with a plane crash.
And St. John’s is my final destination.
Woohoo!!
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