Home Update Log Summary of the Trip The Family Album Day 1 - Departing Day 2 - Amsterdam Day 3 - Veldhoven Day 4 - CttM Day One Day 5 - CttM Day Two Day 6 - The Holland Tour Day 7 - Off to Istanbul Day 8 - Seraglio Point Day 9 - Bosphorous Tour Day 10 - Exploring Sultanahmet Day 11 - The City Walls Day 12 - The Asian Side Day 13 - Taking a Break Day 14 - Leaving Turkey Day 15 - A Day in Singapore Day 16 - Arrival in Sydney Day 17 - Exploring Sydney Day 18 - ODDC Day One Day 19 - ODDC Day Two Day 20 - Toranga Zoo Day 21 - Off to New Zealand Day 22 - Road Trip to Tauranga Day 23 - Tauranga to Taupo Day 24 - Visiting Granny Stanton Day 25 - Leaving Levin Day 26 - Return to Auckland Day 27 - The Trip Home | |
Thursday, May 31, 2001.
And then we're off to New Zealand. We rose
early, around 5am, primarily to enjoy one last serious shower in our hotel room. A
little last minute packing - amazingly, everything still fit in our bags, but
only barely. And, as usual, we had acquired a new bag, although this was a small
one - the conference bag.
The taxi ride to the airport was quick and
uneventful, as was check in, customs and security clearance. In no time, we were
sitting in the Air New Zealand lounge, enjoying a little breakfast. We had
checked all our "big" bags - they were all overstuffed, likely
wouldn't fit into overhead bins, and the flight was only a few hours, hardly
anything to worry about. We'd already had three overnight flights this trip,
anything else is easy.
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Bags packed at the hotel. |
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Stacy grabs a little cereal for
breakfast in the Air New Zealand lounge in the Sydney airport. |
The flight is three hours, in an Air New Zealand
767, comfortable and quick. There wasn't enough time to do much of anything
except read and work on the web site. Got some great views of the city of Sydney
at sunrise along the way.
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Sydney, shortly after take off and sun
rise... lots of people living here. |
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Gaining altitude, looking over the
northern part of Sydney. |
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During the sharp turn to take us off
shore, we caught a glimpse of the Olympic Stadiums. |
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Richard and Stacy enjoying the
comfortable ride to Auckland. |
In no time the flight was over and we made
landfall in New Zealand. There was some light cloud, but for the most part it
was sunny - in contrast to our fears; we had expected rain during the late fall
in the southern hemisphere. Our approach to the airport took us right over the
city and out over the harbour on the east side before turning around and
approaching for an east-to-west landing.
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The big map at the front of the aircraft
shows our flight over the Tasman Sea. |
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Landfall, New Zealand. This is the west
coast, Auckland is not far away. |
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Flying over Auckland, we get a view of
the Auckland Harbour Bridge that connects the north and south sides of the
city. |
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A picture of Mt. Eden, the largest of 48
volcanoes within Auckland. Where most of Auckland is at sea level, Mt.
Eden reaches 196 metres high. |
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A shot of the War Memorial in the
Auckland Domain, one of Auckland's oldest parks. |
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This is Hobson Bay, crossed by Tamaki
Drive connecting the eastern part of Auckland with the central part. |
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In the foreground is Browns Island, and
behind that Rangitoto and Motutapu Islands, all environmental reserve
land. |
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Now flying west again, we get at the
landscape south of Auckland - endless farms. |
Our landing was uneventful, and we passed
quickly through customs - coming from Australia made it easy, they'd already
done all the quarantine work. We had rented a car for our week in New Zealand,
it turned out to be a Honda CRV. The challenge now was to drive a right-hand
drive vehicle on the left-hand side of the road. The week in Australia helped to
make this a bit less traumatic, but there were still moments where you were
convinced you were doing something seriously wrong...
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A list of locations and distances from
the Auckland airport. |
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A beautiful wooden Maori entrance frame
above the path to customs at the airport. |
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Stacy pushing all the luggage out to the
rental car area. |
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The rented Honda CRV. Notice the lack of
dents. |
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Richard driving a right-hand drive
vehicle. |
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One of those white knuckle "I'm on
the wrong side of the road!" moments. |
Aunt Jeanette had told us of a bed &
breakfast called the Tortara Lodge in Manukau, just southeast of Auckland. It
turned out it was only fifteen minutes away, even with white knuckle driving -
the airport is also south of the Auckland. The place is right beside a park, and
is surrounded by small farms.
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Our bedroom in the Tortara Lodge. |
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Our living room (!) in the Tortara
Lodge. |
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The view to the south out of the windows
of the living room, just rolling pastures. |
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Looking east, you can see some housing
development in the distance. |
We were on our own for dinner, and it was only
late afternoon, so to avoid wasting any sunlight, we took a drive into Auckland
proper to explore and find a meal. Of course, it was Thursday, so we drove
straight into Auckland rush hour. Once we made it downtown, it took awhile to
get our bearings.
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The front of the Tortara Lodge, so we
wouldn't forget what it looks like. |
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Rush hour, Kiwi style. Notice we're on
the left side of the highway. |
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During one of our exploration trips (aka
- turning around and going back), we found the Black Magic shipyards,
winners of the America's Cup twice running. |
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Very Granville Island like area known as
Princess Wharf. Lots of pubs and things along here. In the background you
can see the Sky Tower, an Auckland landmark. |
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Looking north off the end of Princess
Wharf, the far less developed north side of Auckland. |
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Walking back along the wharf, looking at
the ferry terminal in Waitemata Harbour. |
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Sunset over Auckland. Behind us is the
Loaded Hog, where we would grab dinner. This site was also where the party
for Black Magic was held. |
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On our way back, Stacy wanted to grab
some groceries from the market near the B&B... |
Turned out the Loaded Hog, where we had dinner,
was one of the more famous eateries along the wharf, which was just plain luck
after walking past all those other eateries around there. We saw a great
photograph of the celebrations for Black Magic in the same harbour, must have
been several hundred thousand people there when the winners of the America's Cup
came a'callin.
We settled in for the night, which would turn
out to be much colder than we expect. The next day we'd head down to Tauranga to
visit with the aunts.
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