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 10: Road Weary

Well it happened one day earlier than we wanted it to. We were hoping that tomorrow would be the resting day. We would arrive in Brisbane in the early afternoon and have the rest of the day to vegetate and rest up but we didn’t make it.

The morning started productively enough with some laundry being done for the second half of the trip and then we headed off to Luna Park to ride the rides we didn’t get to do last night. This time we took the train over the Harbor Bridge rather than walking it and it was much faster.

Luna Park was fun. The views of the bridge, the opera house, and the skyline are great and the atmosphere is really wonderful. It’s a great caricature of the Coney Island of old which it was always emulating. We rode the Wild Mouse first, my 211th and Kirsten’s 95th. It was fun and one of only a few left in the world that are made of wood. The cars were placed high up on their suspensions and would tilt outward a little on each hairpin curve but aside from that it was a pretty standard wild mouse. From there we went into their funhouse appropriately named Coney Island. In it they had the usual funhouse gags like a mirror maze, shifting floors, a rotating barrel, and some very steep slides that you rode down on in a sack. They also had a social mixer, or a joy wheel which basically acts as a centrifuge and riders sit on the wheel and the wheel rotates at greater and greater speeds and throws riders off and into the padded walls that ring the wheel until there is only one left. I’m not sure what usual operations are like but kids had taken over on this one today and we didn’t dare try to bully our fat American selves onto it. I’ve seen videos of them running with adults on them though and they look like a rough and tumble (and completely fun) time.

We also rode the ferris wheel with a twerpy little kid who ran ahead of us as we were getting onto the gondola and jumped in. The ride operators were as befuddled as we were but sent the three of us along even though we made it clear that he was not our child. Kirsten was annoyed and I just ignored him. He just ignored us too and instead shouted down to his PaPAA! PaPAA! The entire ride. I don’t know if they necessarily knew he was up there either.

After Luna we took the ferry back to Circular Quay and that’s when we unraveled. We poked around in the Rocks some more with every intention of heading back to the Quay and catching one of the ferries that left for Manly Beach and walking around in the Botanical Gardens looking for the flying foxes. We even canceled our dinner reservations for a steak place that night after getting hamburgers and deciding we needed a break from eating out. So instead of doing all of that and getting a feel for Sydney outside of the downtown area we found a supermarket and bought a kangaroo steak and a bottle of wine and took it back to the hotel to cook in our kitchenette. The kangaroo is a little gamey and tastes very similar to venison. Good, but not the best steak I’ve had. Very tough though, you’re gonna need some jaw muscles to chew it up. Kirsten would like to note this may also be her fault since it was her first time cooking kangaroo and may not have done the best job but I think it turned out just fine.

Tomorrow we leave for Brisbane and what was supposed to be our resting day. We’ll see if we stick to that or if we find something to do while we’re there. We definitely have to surrender to Greater Sydney though; we’ll have to save any outer activities for a different visit far in the future.