Whitehorse to Auckland – the adventure begins
I’ve already completely lost track of time. It can’t possibly be only 44 hours since we walked out of the house at Whitehorse on the way to the airport. We’re now well into our exploration of a warm, vibrant city some 14,000 km away. We’re meeting wonderful people, seeing beautiful sights and eating excellent food – we are simply having a ball!
Our Air Canada Jazz flight was over an hour late, but we had lots of free time in Vancouver and got a free beer on the flight so it wasn’t a big deal for us (some folks on the flight missed their connections, though).
It was +5°C, raining and dark in Vancouver – yes, I remember the Vancouver winters that I hated. Just before 7:00 pm, we boarded a new Boeing 777-200ER (Extended Range) for the 14.5-hour flight to Auckland. It was quite a shock to walk into this huge plane. The flight was nearly full, so there were almost 320 people, seated 3/3/3 across. The seating is quite tight – maybe that’s the case on every plane now.
We got lucky and hit a good jetstream that cut an hour and a half off the flight, so we arrived just after 5:00 am. The entertainment system on the plane was excellent – it totally blows away any other that I’ve experienced on a plane. The cabin staff was great, the full meals very good (lamb curry for dinner, a mushroom omelette for breakfast). We both slept better than we had expected.
We caught a shuttle to the Hyatt for $32NZ, substantially cheaper than a taxi, which can run $50-90 depending on traffic – research pays off. My feeling as we drove along was that we were in San Diego – the trees and architecture are quite similar.
Not surprisingly, we weren’t able to check in, so we put our bags in storage and went wandering. Cathy had read great reviews of the spa and fitness centre at the Hyatt, so we started off the day with a hot tub, swim and sauna. It truly is a gorgeous facility.
We then walked downtown and found this great little bar that was serving breakfast. There was a guy having a beer already (maybe every town has its version of the “98″), but we had a good conversation with the other people there, Kiwis in town for a family reunion. When looking at prices at places like this, we keep in mind that we save about 25% on exchange and another 15% because the ridiculous system of tipping hasn’t caught on here. Prices on everything in Auckland are high, though, similar to Alaska.
The architecture of the city is wonderful – I could spend a week here just looking at buildings!
We knew that we’d be jet-lagged, so our major outing of the day was a trip up the Skytower. It’s $25 for a trip up, but if you ask the right people, there’s a deal that they don’t promote – $39.50 for a seafood buffet in The Observatory restaurant up top, and that includes a half-hour to look around at the main observation level. In spite of some fairly poor reviews we’ve seen about the restaurant, we had an excellent meal, and if you consider it as costing $14.50 over the cost of the Skytower ride, it’s probably the best meal deal in New Zealand.
The Kiwis are the world leaders in adrenalin sports, and our first experience with it was watching people dive off the top of the Skytower!
After an afternoon nap, we got a phone call from friends in Wellington who we’ll be seeing in a couple of weeks. It was wonderful to hear from them. We finished off the evening with beer and nachos down on the waterfront.
It’s now 6:00 am on Monday the 18th – the day is about to start. The only thing so far that I can complain about is the wireless Internet access at the hotel – it’s 68 cents a minute or $25 a day. I can get access at cafes a mile away for $2 an hour (but they’re not open at this hour). Other than that minor point, we love Auckland. Tommorrow we hit the road.
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