Our trip to Auckland, Part 2: First Impressions

Well, we made it! An uneventful but long flight from LA, and our luggage was actually waiting for us when we got here; despite the fact that it was in Sydney, Australia when we left LA.

Arriving at 5:30am makes it easy to get a cab. For some reason I'd been given the impression that the ride from the airport to the apartment we had rented was fairly short. Au contraire! About 45 minutes and $70 later we arrived at our destination. We hadn't been able to sleep much on the plane so we were pretty wrecked, and eager to get settled. We had made arrangements to have our key stashed in a secret spot so we could get in before the staff arrived.

Our apartment deck looks out over the Viaduct Basin which is where all the America’s Cup racers were when NZ hosted the race.

 

 

Click here to see our new digs!

We’ve walked miles and miles all over the Central Business district for the past two days. The confusing part is if I didn’t know better, I’d swear we were in Tokyo, Seoul, or Beijing. The weather has sucked for two days so far; rain and wind.

I think that it will only be about another day or so before we will want to get a car and branch out a little. It appears that city people (Citiots) have nothing else to do but spend money. We have been frequenting mountaineering type shops to stock up on gear for our South Island expeditions. It was kind of like looking at the real estate ads on the windows at Friday Harbor. Great comic relief. We looked at a North Face windbreaker that was marked down from $900 to $799! What a bargain! We found a place where we can rent a hatch-back type car for $15 NZD ($10.20 USD) a day. The hitch is that we have to leave the car in Christ Church no later than Dec.15. Shouldn’t be too hard since we will most likely be on the South Island at that time. The trick will be getting back to Auckland.

The wx has sucked too bad to be worth taking any pictures, but I’ll fix that problem later. Rob and Michele would like it here; lots of rich people with giant boats. There are sailing yachts here that are in the range of 120 -150 feet! Of course they are surrounded by big, burly Maori security guards so you can’t get near them. Yesterday they had a Mini Cooper rally on the ferry dock!

Well, that’s about it for now. Oops…almost forgot. Billy has denied being the father of Bobby Sue’s baby, so will be the subject of a DNA paternity test to be aired on the Maury Povich show later this fall.

P.S. Happy birthday Doreen, you hot apple bendover!

Total trip cost to date: $5,450.59 USD