18-20 January 2007
Having no clue as to the date and time we were both awake by six am. (9 am yesterday in Hawaii, 11am yesterday in Seattle, {*!!~~0%} on the planet Zork…) Some instant coffee and a bit of Aussie TV morning show (Sydney’s answer to Regis and Kathy Lee). They were interviewing an author who just published a book on “Psychopaths in the workplace”, and how to identify and work with the psycho in the cubicle next to yours… This was followed by a Pink Floyd sampled video on how to be more environmentally aware (www.cooltheglobe.com to see it… its really quite well done). We were on the airport shuttle with two Aussie families and their young ones. A rental car in front of us turned into oncoming traffic, and wouldn’t move over. ALL of us immediately commented, “Must be Americans”… I apologized for the cluelessness of our apparent countryman, and we could see his wife melting his ears. It was all good fun. At the airport the shuttle driver apologized to us for any potential insult to our national image. We laughed and told him they could have been Canadian…
The Sydney airport is a tribute to form, function, and convenience. Part mall, part food court, and intelligently designed. For breakfast we opted for Japanese (Our choices included pretty much every ethnic food available, as well as McD’s and Krispy Kreme…) KK had a shrimp-veggie tempura (a birds nest with prawn) and I had a sushi bento. Best airport food we’ve ever seen or tasted.
Security did not care about our shoes or water bottles, or us for that matter. The short lines move quickly and all the personnel were friendly and polite. Interestingly enough we could be overweight on our checked baggage, but our carry on could be no more than 7 Kilos (about 15½ pounds). JD’s computer and camera equipment alone weigh about 14 pounds combined. His bag before purging weighed almost 14 Kilos. We were able to stuff just about everything non-delicate into Kimberly’s carry-on and check it.
Our in flight movie was The Queen, and we had Steak & Cheese Pie for the meal… Time to get in touch with our inner Brits.
Customs in New Zealand was even more laid back than Australia. Both countries are very concerned with biologicals: Wood, plants, nuts, and seeds, even soil on shoes. If you have any of the former and do not declare it for inspection, HUGE fines are levied immediately, items are confiscated, and your day is not any brighter. We declared our Mac nuts, chocolate and trail mix as a matter of course. It was also always inspected. We always got to keep it. Otherwise off we went.
We hired our car from EZY, a “rent an older car” agency. It’s a right-hand drive 2000 Toyota Corolla with 110,000 kilometers on it (about 70,000 miles). It’s clean, right-hand drive, efficient, right-hand drive, with a good-sized boot (trunk for you Yank heathens…) for our packs. ALL of the countries we plan on visiting are English drive. It is no longer the wrong side of the road; it is the correct side of the road. I will forget this at my peril… The driver’s compartment is not too off; the shift lever (auto, thank goodness) is under my left hand. No problem, easy to adapt. The hardest thing to drill is the turn signal lever is on the right side of the steering column. Oy- windshield wipers for left turn, wash for lane change… I don’t think the other drivers can guess my intentions when I clean the windshield…
A reasonably uneventful trip from the airport brought us to our hostel. It is in Parnell, a smaller sub-district of Auckland City. It is located on a small dead-end side street that seems to be a bit of a hostel row. Turns out that New Zealand really embraces the backpacking community. Hostels, backpacker buses, backpacking service groups, big huge hostels, little niche hostels, and a variety of discount clubs for backpackers as well.
We scored a great parking space just in front of the hostel. In tribute to Frank Costanza (Seinfeld) we refused to use the car because we didn’t want to lose the good space… This meant we walked. A lot. That first night we wandered to get the layout of the area. Auckland is similar to Seattle and San Francisco in topography. Lots of up and down.We did manage to find a nice
Irish pub- The Bog, with live music. A surreal moment: Two Americans in a pub in New Zealand, watching Wales kick the crap out of Italy on the Rugby Channel, with a table of Japanese tourists behind us, to a two-man Irish band singing and playing a mix of jigs and dirges, while trying to figure out what day it really is…
The first morning it was overcast and cool. Somehow we both forgot to pack sunblock for our day trip. The sky cleared, and it got very warm (a humid 78 or so). Kimberly brought up the hole in the ozone. JD was sure that it was only over the Antarctic. Make a note: He was actually incorrect…. The hole sits right over NZ. They post the daily UV
index in the local papers. It was at the top of the scale. We ended up with a bit more color than planned. We do have lots of aloe. We also have Bullfrog- the sunblock used by the tri-athletes during Ironman (on the Big Island…) It is heavy duty (provided you actually put it on…). Only comes off with soap. SPF 5000. Like wearing an aluminum blanket. Anyway- we tramped all around downtown Auckland, at least 8 miles worth. It is a city that successfully combines British propriety with a Bohemian edge.
Interesting food note: If it is edible, they put it in a pie. Quick foodstuffs come in pie format. All things scary, and yummy, come in puff pastry. JD had a Thai chicken curry pie for breakfast take-away (Have we mentioned its not take-out, or to-go, its take-away), while Kimberly had egg & bacon pie. We just think of it as an edible bowl.
Being antipodal throws the natural sense of direction off. No matter what the season in the
northern hemisphere the sun is always southerly. In the morning your shadow moves west to north, afternoon north to east. Just one of many subtle cues combined to know which way you are moving. JD, normally very aware of his direction of travel, can’t seem to get his inner compass calibrated. We are just learning someplace new anyway, so a few extra miles here and there are just good exercise. Zoolander can’t turn left, JD can’t orient by south. The joy brought to Kimberly by JD getting lost was virtually immeasurable.
Auckland is another city with a space phallus. We are now counting how many we have been to: Seattle, Vegas, Vancouver (BC), that other Canadian city invaded in the South Park movie, and Auckland so far. Kuala Lumpur probably won’t count, as those towers are an actual building. New Zealand, being a country of self-responsibility and minimal litigation, actually has a company that offers bungee jumping from the Sky Tower. There’s a bloke who has done this over 80 times… (You can also bungee from the Harbour Bridge, and abseil -forward facing rappel; a fast run straight down- on one of
the skyscrapers)
Burnt and exhausted, we retired to our humble lodgings for the evening.
We think it’s Saturday. Huge line at the ferry for the nearby get-away island, yep, it’s Saturday. Having scarfed some breakfast take-away we headed off to the tourist destination of Waiheke (Why-Hee-Kee). Home to beaches, shops, and wineries. Touted as a walking island (There are cars and roads however), we studied maps and figured we could pull off a reasonable, smallish self-tour of part of the island. We were slathered with Bullfrog. No more UV for us! Not until the base sets in at least… There is topography. There was a bit more vertical than we expected, but not unreasonable. Wonderfully well-marked “tramping” trails and roads are prevalent throughout the island. (Tramping is hiking or Kimberly’s memories of undergrad. Could be day trips, or long weekends. Tramping trails abound throughout the country, and are a very common form of recreation.)
We tramped our way to a fabulous winery, Mudbrick, on top of a slope overlooking the bay
with Auckland in the distance. An accountant decided one day in 1992 he wanted to be a vintner. He brought some cuttings in form the US and planted them at his holiday home on the island. A few years later he was producing some amazing whites. His kids tend to travel by horseback around the island. Today they had one hitched to a support for one of the vine trellises. Did you know the space between wine grape rows is exactly the length of a horse? Did you also know a horse likes a good butt scratching almost as much as Kimberly? We watched a 
very happy pony sliding his ass back and forth across a support pole while munching a vine of fresh Cabernet grapes. Horse heaven? We can only assume… After a vertical tasting we tramped off to the next winery on our map. Unfortunately it was closed for remodeling. Bummer that. Leg fatigue was setting in. We had a quick bite in town and headed the 4 kilometers back to the ferry, not looking forward to the few uphill kilometers to the hostel.
A bottle of wine before bed, bemoaning our aching calves, and we face driving on the opposite side of the road tomorrow… Heading north to dive Poor Knights, a Jacques Cousteau top-ten dive site.
Having no clue as to the date and time we were both awake by six am. (9 am yesterday in Hawaii, 11am yesterday in Seattle, {*!!~~0%} on the planet Zork…) Some instant coffee and a bit of Aussie TV morning show (Sydney’s answer to Regis and Kathy Lee). They were interviewing an author who just published a book on “Psychopaths in the workplace”, and how to identify and work with the psycho in the cubicle next to yours… This was followed by a Pink Floyd sampled video on how to be more environmentally aware (www.cooltheglobe.com to see it… its really quite well done). We were on the airport shuttle with two Aussie families and their young ones. A rental car in front of us turned into oncoming traffic, and wouldn’t move over. ALL of us immediately commented, “Must be Americans”… I apologized for the cluelessness of our apparent countryman, and we could see his wife melting his ears. It was all good fun. At the airport the shuttle driver apologized to us for any potential insult to our national image. We laughed and told him they could have been Canadian…
The Sydney airport is a tribute to form, function, and convenience. Part mall, part food court, and intelligently designed. For breakfast we opted for Japanese (Our choices included pretty much every ethnic food available, as well as McD’s and Krispy Kreme…) KK had a shrimp-veggie tempura (a birds nest with prawn) and I had a sushi bento. Best airport food we’ve ever seen or tasted.
Security did not care about our shoes or water bottles, or us for that matter. The short lines move quickly and all the personnel were friendly and polite. Interestingly enough we could be overweight on our checked baggage, but our carry on could be no more than 7 Kilos (about 15½ pounds). JD’s computer and camera equipment alone weigh about 14 pounds combined. His bag before purging weighed almost 14 Kilos. We were able to stuff just about everything non-delicate into Kimberly’s carry-on and check it.
Our in flight movie was The Queen, and we had Steak & Cheese Pie for the meal… Time to get in touch with our inner Brits.
Customs in New Zealand was even more laid back than Australia. Both countries are very concerned with biologicals: Wood, plants, nuts, and seeds, even soil on shoes. If you have any of the former and do not declare it for inspection, HUGE fines are levied immediately, items are confiscated, and your day is not any brighter. We declared our Mac nuts, chocolate and trail mix as a matter of course. It was also always inspected. We always got to keep it. Otherwise off we went.
We hired our car from EZY, a “rent an older car” agency. It’s a right-hand drive 2000 Toyota Corolla with 110,000 kilometers on it (about 70,000 miles). It’s clean, right-hand drive, efficient, right-hand drive, with a good-sized boot (trunk for you Yank heathens…) for our packs. ALL of the countries we plan on visiting are English drive. It is no longer the wrong side of the road; it is the correct side of the road. I will forget this at my peril… The driver’s compartment is not too off; the shift lever (auto, thank goodness) is under my left hand. No problem, easy to adapt. The hardest thing to drill is the turn signal lever is on the right side of the steering column. Oy- windshield wipers for left turn, wash for lane change… I don’t think the other drivers can guess my intentions when I clean the windshield…
A reasonably uneventful trip from the airport brought us to our hostel. It is in Parnell, a smaller sub-district of Auckland City. It is located on a small dead-end side street that seems to be a bit of a hostel row. Turns out that New Zealand really embraces the backpacking community. Hostels, backpacker buses, backpacking service groups, big huge hostels, little niche hostels, and a variety of discount clubs for backpackers as well.
We scored a great parking space just in front of the hostel. In tribute to Frank Costanza (Seinfeld) we refused to use the car because we didn’t want to lose the good space… This meant we walked. A lot. That first night we wandered to get the layout of the area. Auckland is similar to Seattle and San Francisco in topography. Lots of up and down.We did manage to find a nice
Irish pub- The Bog, with live music. A surreal moment: Two Americans in a pub in New Zealand, watching Wales kick the crap out of Italy on the Rugby Channel, with a table of Japanese tourists behind us, to a two-man Irish band singing and playing a mix of jigs and dirges, while trying to figure out what day it really is…The first morning it was overcast and cool. Somehow we both forgot to pack sunblock for our day trip. The sky cleared, and it got very warm (a humid 78 or so). Kimberly brought up the hole in the ozone. JD was sure that it was only over the Antarctic. Make a note: He was actually incorrect…. The hole sits right over NZ. They post the daily UV
index in the local papers. It was at the top of the scale. We ended up with a bit more color than planned. We do have lots of aloe. We also have Bullfrog- the sunblock used by the tri-athletes during Ironman (on the Big Island…) It is heavy duty (provided you actually put it on…). Only comes off with soap. SPF 5000. Like wearing an aluminum blanket. Anyway- we tramped all around downtown Auckland, at least 8 miles worth. It is a city that successfully combines British propriety with a Bohemian edge.Interesting food note: If it is edible, they put it in a pie. Quick foodstuffs come in pie format. All things scary, and yummy, come in puff pastry. JD had a Thai chicken curry pie for breakfast take-away (Have we mentioned its not take-out, or to-go, its take-away), while Kimberly had egg & bacon pie. We just think of it as an edible bowl.
Being antipodal throws the natural sense of direction off. No matter what the season in the
northern hemisphere the sun is always southerly. In the morning your shadow moves west to north, afternoon north to east. Just one of many subtle cues combined to know which way you are moving. JD, normally very aware of his direction of travel, can’t seem to get his inner compass calibrated. We are just learning someplace new anyway, so a few extra miles here and there are just good exercise. Zoolander can’t turn left, JD can’t orient by south. The joy brought to Kimberly by JD getting lost was virtually immeasurable.Auckland is another city with a space phallus. We are now counting how many we have been to: Seattle, Vegas, Vancouver (BC), that other Canadian city invaded in the South Park movie, and Auckland so far. Kuala Lumpur probably won’t count, as those towers are an actual building. New Zealand, being a country of self-responsibility and minimal litigation, actually has a company that offers bungee jumping from the Sky Tower. There’s a bloke who has done this over 80 times… (You can also bungee from the Harbour Bridge, and abseil -forward facing rappel; a fast run straight down- on one of
the skyscrapers)Burnt and exhausted, we retired to our humble lodgings for the evening.
We think it’s Saturday. Huge line at the ferry for the nearby get-away island, yep, it’s Saturday. Having scarfed some breakfast take-away we headed off to the tourist destination of Waiheke (Why-Hee-Kee). Home to beaches, shops, and wineries. Touted as a walking island (There are cars and roads however), we studied maps and figured we could pull off a reasonable, smallish self-tour of part of the island. We were slathered with Bullfrog. No more UV for us! Not until the base sets in at least… There is topography. There was a bit more vertical than we expected, but not unreasonable. Wonderfully well-marked “tramping” trails and roads are prevalent throughout the island. (Tramping is hiking or Kimberly’s memories of undergrad. Could be day trips, or long weekends. Tramping trails abound throughout the country, and are a very common form of recreation.)
We tramped our way to a fabulous winery, Mudbrick, on top of a slope overlooking the bay
with Auckland in the distance. An accountant decided one day in 1992 he wanted to be a vintner. He brought some cuttings in form the US and planted them at his holiday home on the island. A few years later he was producing some amazing whites. His kids tend to travel by horseback around the island. Today they had one hitched to a support for one of the vine trellises. Did you know the space between wine grape rows is exactly the length of a horse? Did you also know a horse likes a good butt scratching almost as much as Kimberly? We watched a 
very happy pony sliding his ass back and forth across a support pole while munching a vine of fresh Cabernet grapes. Horse heaven? We can only assume… After a vertical tasting we tramped off to the next winery on our map. Unfortunately it was closed for remodeling. Bummer that. Leg fatigue was setting in. We had a quick bite in town and headed the 4 kilometers back to the ferry, not looking forward to the few uphill kilometers to the hostel.A bottle of wine before bed, bemoaning our aching calves, and we face driving on the opposite side of the road tomorrow… Heading north to dive Poor Knights, a Jacques Cousteau top-ten dive site.
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