Day 17: Auckland briefly, jumbo jet longly

We have returned to our native soil now. Currently I am drinking some tea, taking some sleepy vitamins and steeling myself for my return to work in the morning. Everything about the return was pretty uneventful. It was a long flight from Auckland to LA but not as long as LA to Melbourne was. Neither one of us got much sleep so a lot of movies were watched on the in flight monitors. I think I watched Angels and Demons, Adventureland, and something else but I don’t recall what. I may have been awake but I doubt I was coherent. Customs in LA was a breeze. I guess the trick is to declare anything that you possibly can and then the customs agents won’t feel the need to invade you. We also had pretty good train karma coming back from the airport with only one snafu at the Lawrence St. station which was closed for the weekend. Fortunately that only ended up being a two block detour to the 2,3 train that took us to Atlantic.

Auckland this morning – way way way back this morning was surprisingly nice. Most people say they find it bland and I suppose it was, but it was bland in a rather comforting way. We didn’t see much, just puttered around in Wendell through the downtown area and then up to Mt. Eden for a view of the city. Mt. Eden is actually a dormant or extinct volcano, I don’t recall at this point, but you can drive to the top and they have a nice path walking around the rim. No going down into the crater though as they had signs warning against it saying that the ecosystem was very fragile. We obeyed but it would have been cool to go stand at the bottom of a volcano crater.

From the rim of Mt. Eden you can see a 360 degree panorama of Auckland and it’s obvious that the area was once a hotbed of tectonic activity. You can see the volcanic cones rising all over the place. We counted at least ten but the guidebooks say there are many more. It was a very interesting landscape and much different than the general mountainous-ness of Wellington and the rest of what we saw of New Zealand.

From here we drove to Auckland airport, dropped off Wendell the rental, and got situated for our long flight. Thus concludes our honeymoon. We had an awesome time, had so much fun, and made so many great memories. It was fun to write up these entries each night and we hope you all enjoyed reading along. Until next time. . . .

Day 16: The last day

Today was all about the driving. We stopped at a few spots along the way to stretch our legs and exercise the camera. In order of appearance:

Craters of the moon is a volcanic thermal field that was somewhat active until the 1950s when a nearby geothermal energy plant went online and lowered the underground reservoir and thus it became less violent and geyser-y and more steamy and bubbly. It made sense when I read the informational signs but now that I’m typing it out the logic kind of defies me. It had something to do with the lowered water levels in the reservoir that changed the pressure coming out of the fumaroles and other such vents. It was pretty cool though. There were all these craters and rifts in the ground that had steam billowing out and boiling mud at the bottom. All the plant life was green at the tips but had a charred appearance otherwise. It was very weird that plant life could live in such an environment with the heat and the soil that was loaded with phosphorous and sulfur. (see the full set of photos here.)

We drove a little further and came upon a sign advertising another thermal field so we pulled off and drove down a dirt road for awhile before we came to some campground with alpacas, chickens, peafowl, and a sheep running around. We decided that feeding the random chickens and peafowl the remnants of our French bread from last night would be more fun than seeing another thermal field. Yep, you can tell we’re city folk, we live in an inhospitable environment but chickens are something new!

From there we proceeded up the road to the tourist city of Rotorua which you can smell before you actually enter. It is also in a volcanic region and the smell of sulfur hangs over the town. Our guidebooks indicated that the overseas tourists typically stayed in Rotorua which stank and was pretty tacky with the tourist trap clutter while the Kiwi tourists stayed in Taupo which had beautiful vistas and was generally a little sleepier. Unfortunately the weather made short work of those vistas as it continued to rain all day. We tried.

Anyway we stopped for lunch in Rotorua eating at The Fat Dog. Their menu seemed limited so I ordered the burger which ended up being ridiculously big and vertically unstable. It had two beef patties, lettuce, bacon, mayo, carrots, cole slaw, a fried egg, and string beets per the tradition down here. I would like to report that they’re onto something down here, beets on a burger is actually really good. I can’t really describe it and I admit that I don’t like beets, but trust me, it works. Kirsten got a disappointing chicken fettucine thing that really ended up being chicken noodle soup. After lunch we walked around town a bit and found a little ice cream shop. Even though it was raining and cold we got some more hokey pokey ice cream because it was worth it. I also picked up a bottle of RC Cola (I know, exciting right!?) that was strangely bitter. As we tried other sodas in New Zealand it became apparent that the Kiwis don’t seem to like them overly sweet as most of them had quite a bite to them, including the Coca Cola.

We then drove up to the North Coast and a little town called Waihi Beach which was very pretty and cold. There were also hundreds of shells washed up so we picked up a good collection while we minded the giant sand fleas that were everywhere.

Our final stop before it got dark was a nice little waterfall along the highway that had a turnoff and shortly beyond that there was a very impressive canyon through which the highway wound its way along the bottom. In fact we hadn’t planned to stop but once we passed the water fall and went through the canyon we decided to turn around and go see them again this time from a speed of zero miles per hour.

From there we drove straight into Auckland where the fearless mountain goat drivers suddenly turned into timid lambs on the multilane freeway and drove SO SLOW. We stayed in a high rise hotel on the north shore that ended up being one of the nicest hotels of the honeymoon. It was a huge suite on the 13th floor overlooking the ocean with an all glass balcony, a full kitchen with a dishwasher and laundry facilities, and a pool up on the roof of the low rise portion of the facility that we enjoyed that night after a nice lamb dinner from a restaurant up the road called Aubergine. Too bad we were only here one night as it could have been a nice little base to check out Auckland.

Tomorrow we have a couple hours to spare to check things out but not enough time to jump off the sky tower. They have one of those freestanding observation towers here where you pay about $20 and go up and enjoy an amazing view and attached to it they have something called the Sky Jump which looks pretty cool. You’re harnessed in to a cable system and jump off a diving board on the roof. You glide rappelling style down the cables and come to a controlled stop at street level. The videos all show the happy passengers landing square on their feet on a platform above the sidewalk. Looks awesome! I’m told that Las Vegas is to get a similar system sometime in the next few years so perhaps I’ll get my chance whenever I get over there again.

Anyway, for now – goodnight!

Day 15: Riding Wendell from Napier to Taupo

It’s morning again and these days are going by so fast. It seemed like it was just the other day that we were in Mission Beach and were finally over our jet lag. Now we have just two more nights before we return to reality. Alas.

The breakfast part of the B & B was very good. The owner, Ruth, fixed up some nice kiwi (fruit this time), croissants, muesli, and other vegetarian fare for Kirsten and I along with the other two guests, a nice older gay couple from Palm Springs. Bizarrely, once we all found out we were Americans we couldn’t help but talk about the politics of our country. I’m sure our host was either bored out of her mind or perturbed at our sensibilities. Oh well, it was a delicious breakfast and a wonderful diversion to the endless hotel rooms. This was also the first time either of us had stayed in a bed and breakfast and we both liked it. It seemed like we were staying with friends rather than at a hotel and I suppose that’s the appeal.

The morning was spent nosing about downtown Napier in the daylight. We wanted to go to this town because after an earthquake leveled the place back in the 1930s they rebuilt everything in the art deco style. The guidebooks all tout it as the next best thing to Miami Beach if not better. The art deco is very nice but it’s much more subtle than the flashy buildings and neon of Miami Beach. At first I thought it was far inferior but as I began to notice all the little details, I changed my mind. It’s definitely an excellent collection of art deco architecture but to compare it to Miami Beach isn’t really fair to either city. It was more like the art deco you would find in the American west than the stuff you find on the coasts.

After a bit of lunch in a sidewalk café we took off in the newly renamed Wendell the Rental car toward the resort town of Taupo. This involved more mountain driving, this time over the Ahimanawa Range, which was not as beautiful or twisty and extreme as yesterday’s drive. We did stop alongside the road to see some waterfalls though that were quite spectacular if not a little far off. Once we got over the range it began to rain and never really let up all day so we couldn’t really enjoy the views across Lake Taupo today but hopefully tomorrow will be clear.

We spent our rainy day perusing the Taupo museum which had some very impressive Maori carvings and models of World War II planes. I pointed out the planes that my Grandfathers were involved with to Kirsten who smiled and nodded. They also had a very long wooden canoe that was half finished before it was abandoned for several centuries and even survived forest fires and volcanic eruptions. Needless to say it was pretty beat up but with a little patchwork it could probably be taken out for a jaunt on the lake.

After a wrong turn at one of the roundabouts we ended up going down a road to Huka falls which we decided to see rather than turning around. The falls were impressive in that they were like a horizontal Niagara Falls. It was a very large volume of water being forced into a very long and narrow chute. It didn’t descend far but the chute was probably an eighth of a mile long. It was an impressive display of turbulent hydraulics.

Our final stops for the evening were at a honey store where Kirsten bought two big jugs of honey that we’re hoping the customs officials will let us take home and we tried New Zealands favorite ice cream flavor – Hokey Pokey. It’s a sort of buttery vanilla flavored ice cream with chunks of crunchy caramel in it. It’s similar to pecan pralines but minus the pecans. It’s delicious!

The other stop was the grocery store as the restaurants in town didn’t seem to be too appealing. So we picked up a rotisserie chicken, a bottle of local wine, some bread and cheese, and some breaded yams that we sautéed in our kitchenette. It was a good dinner and now the Jacuzzi awaits.

Note that new photos and movies are up on our Flickr page (more to be added here to the blog later).

Day 14: Over the mountains and through the forests. . . .

We woke up to a beautiful Wellington morning today, so we rolled over and went back to bed. I blame the generous check out time of 11. All the other hotels we’ve stayed at have had checkouts at 10. So given the late morning, compounded with a need to run to the drugstore for some contact solution to get us through New Zealand, we got off to a late start this morning. Not a problem now, but it would prove to be an annoyance later.

After our pharmacy run (back to using the word pharmacy rather than chemist) and a short navigational and “you can do it” pep talk, we made our way through the city to the peak of Mt. Victoria which is sort of smack in the middle and has fantastic views in all directions. You can even see the entire airport and just how much runway the pilots have to contend with. Once you get out of the flat bit around downtown the roads are extremely narrow and are often times just wide enough for one car – yet they’re two lanes. Several times I had to pull part way into a driveway to get out of the way of cars coming the other way. We’re driving a runty model Corolla too, I can’t imagine trying to take Bernie through this town. The views from the top were magnificent once we made it up there and seeing some of the lots people built their houses on were impressive too. Some homes had their own incline railways that had garage door motors attached so they could get from street level up to their front doors. Others just had hand cranks.

After Mt. Victoria we went down and back up to the Wellington Zoo, mainly to see their one-legged kiwi. He got it caught in an opossum trap and had to be amputated. He seems to get around just fine now though. It seems that opossums are a serious pest in New Zealand though. The zookeepers also sternly admonished us to keep our cats indoors and dogs on leashes so they don’t eat the native wildlife which is also a big problem here. The kiwis are nocturnal, flightless birds that are quite endangered and difficult to spot in the wild but after seeing photos of them in our guidebooks, we really wanted to see one. We didn’t see much else in the zoo aside from some more fruit bats. They weren’t as large as the ones we saw in Brisbane but it was fun to get up close to them.

From here we meant to head on out to Napier and the wine regions to do some tasting and we got on the main road that took us around Mt. Victoria and into downtown but unfortunately once we got into downtown the road forked and we were in the wrong lane and ended up going back over Mt. Victoria because there wasn’t any place to turn the car around. Once we got back on that main road we made sure to get in the proper lane. Before we got on the main highway out of Wellington we passed the parliamentary buildings of New Zealand which were pretty cool looking. They call one of them the Beehive. I’m assuming because of the shape and not because the New Zealand politicians are as busy as bees, although they might be!

The two-lane highway up to Napier goes over the Tararua Range in a long stretch of looping, twisting switchbacks up and over. It made for a very exciting beginning to the drive. I was driving at what I thought was a slightly uncomfortable rate but the Kiwis have no fear at all! They were taking those corners like they were driving miatas while on drugs. Even the truck drivers!

I should also note that kiwi refers to New Zealanders, a flightless bird that is a national symbol, and a tasty fruit. Try to keep track as all three will be mentioned at some point.

After leaving the mountains there was little interesting aside from sheep everywhere we looked. The drive also took much longer than we anticipated and we arrived in Napier well past 7:00 and well past closing time for the wineries. That ended up being fine since they seem to take drunk driving very seriously here and we actually went through a checkpoint where they checked my breath. Of course I, being American was expecting to blow into a little tube like they show on the movies and when the police officer holds this machine up to be face I start blowing at it even though there was no tube while the police officer asks me my name and address. Since I was in mid blow I didn’t respond quickly enough and Kirsten starts yelling at me in an inarticulate and panicky sort of way. Startled I turn toward her and shout out my name and the beginning of my address before lowering my voice and turning back to the device the cop was holding in my face which promptly blinked out the verdict of “No Alcohol.” Apparently it can detect it from speech and there is no tube involved. I look up at the cop who was laughing at us and wished us a nice holiday. We thanked him and drove on, but not smoothly as I overcorrected in lining up with the turn and slammed the left front tire into the curb.

Driving on the left eventually got easier and the only problems I was having was maintaining my side of the car on the right side of the lane. Even though I knew I was supposed to be in the left I still wanted to be on the left side of the lane. I gave the rumble strips a work out.

Once we got to Napier and settled in at the Green House Bed & Breakfast, we walked down the hill that the house was located on and into town. Dinner was at a place called Lone Star and seemed to be the best option open for dinner. I had the lamb and Kirsten had some sort of delicious bean dip. We ambled around town a bit more before staggering up the big hill back to the B & B for the night.

Day 13: We’re driving on the wrong side of the road!

Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal is amazing. Lots of light, lots of space, and very comfortable and functional furniture, this is an airport I wouldn’t mind being delayed in for awhile. Our flight today was aboard Air New Zealand which was a nice respite from the no frills Virgin Blue and Jet Star. Even though the flight was only a little over three hours, they still served us breakfast and I’m still kicking myself for not getting a mimosa like all the other women. Don’t judge me, they looked delicious!

Wellington’s airport is ridiculous. It’s a single runway and taxiway between two hills with houses crowded up right next to it. We could see the control tower up on stilts, on one hill, in a neighborhood. Not only is it narrow but it’s also bracketed at both ends of the runway by Wellington Bay. The terminal itself is nice and functional and we breezed right through customs and got our rental car with no problems at all.

Being a passenger on the left side of the car and riding in the left lane is dizzying enough but actually doing the driving is REALLY disorienting! It’s really like learning how to drive all over again. Nothing is where it should be and you have to visualize each turn before you make it. Remember to check your new blind spots, your mirrors are not in the right place and neither is the gear selector or the turn signal. When I went to move out of park I rolled down the window. When I meant to indicate a right turn I turned on the windshield wipers. But eventually we made it to the hotel incident free.

The Mercure hotel is very nice and Kirsten was happy that we have a bathtub here after shower loving Australia (where water conservation is extra important). We went for a long walk around central Wellington which is very compact and manageable. The geography is a lot like Pittsburgh but the architecture is more modern. The harbor seems to be everywhere the hillsides aren’t, and aside from the downtown area there doesn’t seem to be any flat land here. Also, the New Zealand accent is much thicker and I finally feel like I’m in a foreign country.

We also rode the incline cable car up to the botanical garden and walked around up there. We were quite taken with the R2-D2 birds up there that we later learned from a postcard are called Tui. They have a bullfrog like balloon on their throat and they make all sorts of R2-D2 sounds, telephone rings, fax machine beeps and buzzes, laser beam blasts. It was hilarious! There were also a flock of what looked like ducks that were screeching (not quacking) away as they flew by – they turned out to be parrots.

From there we meandered our way back through downtown back to the neighborhood our hotel is located, Brooklyn, and had a pizza at Hell (thanks to a recommendation from our wonderful friend Phaedre). I had the Lust and Kirsten had the Greed. We even had some lust and greed leftover for breakfast tomorrow morning. How devilish.

Day 12: An ambitious day

Today we went a little crazy and made plans to go to not one, but two, major theme parks. Since they were both on the small side and only a mile from each other and connected by a bus service, it IS possible to do it. But the fact that they are both only open until 5 makes it pretty tough. Plus the Australian ride capacity mindset works against you as well.

We headed to Dreamland first because they had fewer rides that interested us. We weren’t real sure what the unifying theme was for this park but there were sections associated with the American west, surf culture, Nickelodeon, Australian animals, and tigers. Upon entering we were greeted with a sign indicating that one of the roller coasters, the Tower of Terror, would not be running that day so that was a bummer. Scratching that, we headed to their second biggest coaster, Cyclone, which interestingly was moved to Dreamland from Luna Park Sydney.

Cyclone is a steel coaster that after several twists and turns, goes upside down twice for the big finish. The loading operation of only running one train, only using one side of the station for loading and unloading meant that the line for this moved pretty slow – even first thing in the morning. The ride itself was pretty rough and uneventful as well. Once was enough.

We then walked over to their motorcycle themed coaster which had cars that you rode in like a motorcycle. The restraint closed over your back as you hunched over the handlebars. It then launched the train into a series of high speed figure eights. It was a bit short but a lot of fun and was the best ride we rode at Dreamland. We debated on riding again but decided to continue riding other rides instead.

We also rode their family friendly coaster, Runaway Reptar which was tame although it had a few speedy bits. Then I rode (and Kirsten declined to ride) the Giant Drop which is attached to the side of the Tower of Terror and uses the same structure. The Giant Drop is one of the tallest freefall rides in the world and it hoists you up in a chair with your feet dangling to a height of 390 feet before letting you fall back to earth. At the bottom a set of powerful magnets bring you to a smooth stop. Yay technology! The view from the top was pretty incredible and once I brought myself to actually look around I could see the tall towers of Surfers Paradise along the coast off in the distance. The drop itself was a hoot and lasted a good long time.

I also wanted to try to get on the log ride but after standing in line for a bit and barely moving, we gave up and made a run through the Australian animal exhibits and saw the tigers doing tigerly things. We got to see a couple of cassowaries, dingoes, saltwater crocodiles (they are so freakin big), and wombats. Kirsten found a Tasmanian devil although I missed it. They also had a petting area for kangaroos. The one that I was scratching seemed pretty happy until some Japanese tourist came up and yanked his ears. I hope something bit him later. And if something hasn’t, I hope something will. The park was also overrun with ibis and little water dragons (lizards).

After that we left Dreamworld and caught the first bus over to Warner Brothers Movie World which is themed like a movie studio park such as Universal Studios. The rides here approach Disney in their thematic level with the notable exception of the Lethal Weapon roller coaster which was so brutal it may possibly be the worst I’ve ridden. Fortunately Kirsten did not ride because she has me to warn her of these things. I knew it would be rough but not that rough!

The other two big coasters were a lot more fun though. Scooby Doo’s Spooky Coaster was an indoor coaster that had a lot of great surprise drops and turns and may have been our favorite coaster of the trip. Superman Escape is a very high speed coaster that is themed to a subway system that becomes trapped underground due to an earthquake – the ride actually does have a long twisting tunnel at the beginning past subway stations that are collapsing around you. Finally you stop and Superman shoves you out of the ground and straight into the sky and then takes you on a short, but very speedy whirlwind tour of the front entrance of the park. Superman was Kirsten’s 100th coaster and her favorite part were the Pocket Police who made darn sure that there was absolutely nothing in your pockets (note: this is sarcasm - she was actually very cranky, annoyed, and swore to never ride it again). They had a person standing at the end of the line assigning seats and having everyone turn their pockets inside out out. Nothing may go on, not even if your pockets button, snap, zip, or weld shut, you cannot bring anything aboard, not even tissues or pocket lint.

After the coasters we also rode the Looney Tunes River Adventure which involves leaving Australia and going to Hollywood and then going back to Australia in the ride. It was tricky logic to follow but a fun ride with a little twisty slide at the end. The Road Runner Roller Coaster was their family friendly coaster which was very similar to the one at Dreamworld. The Wild West Falls, which was a very well done log ride with a huge drop out of a very tall Disney style mountain, and a float through a ghost town. The detailing on this ride was really well done, as was the detailing on the next ride, the Batman Adventure. This was a simulator style ride where we piloted hovercrafts and engaged in aerial battle with Batman and Batgirl against the Joker, Catwoman, and Mr. Freeze. The ride itself was standard fare but the preshows in Bruce Wayne’s library and down in the Batcave were very well done.

Finally we capped our day with two additional rides on Scooby Doo and Superman and took in the Shrek in 4D movie. Shrek was an excellent show and all the 3D and 4D effects (tactile effects such as spraying water, puffs of air, seat cushion buzzers, etc, to enhance the movie) were well done. All in all it was a very fun day and Movie World more than made up for Dreamworld’s disappointments.

After the park closed and we caught the long train ride back to Brisbane we decided to head to Verve again for dinner because it was so good and we didn’t feel like doing any additional walking around. They did not disappoint either.

Tomorrow we catch the early flight to Wellington, New Zealand where we have a rental car waiting. Yep, wrong side of the road driving for us. I’m nervous but that seems silly, right? I mean, just last week I was jumping off huge slippery rocks into a river potentially teeming with saltwater crocodiles. Driving on the left should be a cinch. Knock on wood. . . .

Day 11: The rain in Brisbane falls mostly on our manes

Not much action today because it was another travel day; this time from Sydney to Brisbane which is our last Australian stop. The trains and planes were uneventful if not expensive. It seems that in Australia it costs around $15 to get downtown from the airport no matter which city you’re flying into. In Sydney and Brisbane the trains run out to the airport and the process is pretty easy. Melbourne and Cairns has bus service and it’s a bit tougher and requires some pre-arrangement – hence all the cab travel there.

Anyhow, Brisbane is quite different than the other three cities we’ve traveled to in that it doesn’t seem to be a tourist spot. Aside from the train from the airport things have been noticeably cheaper and the pace much less frenetic. It seems to be a sleepy Midwestern city to the vibrant Sydney and Melbourne which both have a much busier feel. It probably has a lot to do with all the tourists heading south to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise rather than staying in Brisbane proper.

After settling in at our swank hotel The Portal, we took a late afternoon/early evening stroll. Since it is only spring here, the sun sets early so it’s dark by 5:30 or 6. We first strolled along the Brisbane River along a walkway that was quite popular with joggers and bikers and had lots of little cafes and bars along the way. We ended up eating at a place called The Verve which was a new age-y Italian place in the basement of some office building. It was actually quite nice and cozy with all exposed brick and dark lighting. The food was great, we hadn’t had food this good since that Mexican place in Melbourne, and it may have even been better than that! I had a chicken and bleu cheese risotto and Kirsten had a chicken and goat cheese gnocchi. Excellent. It also may have been the cheapest meal we’ve eaten this whole time that wasn’t fast food. Australia has a minimum wage of about $15/hour and it really drives the prices up in the service industry. But you can’t complain too much because at least the workers are actually making a living wage.

Then we walked outside and got across the street before the sky opened up without warning and began raining in a torrential fashion so we ducked into a Belgian Beer Garden to keep dry. This was a very nice bar, quite affordable, and very spacious. After a beer apiece and after the rain had passed we continued walking down to the historic end of Brisbane. As I walked past the old parliamentary buildings and rowhouses I got to wondering how much of this was around when my Grandpa spent time here during World War II. Something to ask him when I get home.

At one point we left downtown and walked onto a university campus that wasn’t on our maps, but directly across from the campus was the botanical gardens. Now, because it’s well after dark at this point we got treated to some nocturnal life that seemed completely uninteresting to all the students leaving their night classes but was very interesting to us. We first saw some sort of marsupial climbing around on the trees with a youngster attached to her back. She eventually made her way down to the ground and walked along the path completely oblivious to the college students who were likewise oblivious to her. Basically I think we saw the Australian equivalent of a squirrel. But it was exciting! [update: later we discovered that these were possums - which are not the same as American opossums.]

But even better than that, the botanical gardens also has a LOT of flying foxes. We stood under the trees watching them flapping around from limb to limb and out over the park, squawking at each other, and generally being exciting to us (again, the college students didn’t care) for at least a half hour. Flying foxes are the world’s largest bats and as the name implies they look remarkably similar to foxes with reddish fur on their heads and distinctly canine faces and their wingspans looked like they were around five feet. They eat fruit and see quite well because they don’t rely on echolocation. It was amazing watching them fly overhead because they’re SO big and watching as they crashed into the trees as they landed because they’re SO big! Graceful and birdlike they are not but they are ridiculously cute and I want one.

So that was all very very exciting to us and we walked back to The Portal and found that we had paid the price as our shoes were just caked with bat poop. So we washed our shoes off and cleaned out our treads with a q-tip and ended up plugging up the sink with poop which we had to clear out and dump into the toilet. There are still lots of little undigested seeds all over the bathroom that just sort of went everywhere. Maybe now I don’t want one so bad. Perhaps just a plush toy version would suffice.