Sheep Luv Tour 2008 - Day One Continued...again

Ant reminded me to mention the fact that Auckland Airport was fairly retro (80s style), had oppressive air conditioning and had a lack of "customers" - hence it was really quick getting thru customs and immigrations.

Ant had booked a Corolla from Hertz (they Hertz harder) for a few days so we could make our own way from Auckland (near the top of the Nth Island) to Wellington (south of the Nth Island). Of interest - a couple of weeks ago - we had hired a new Corolla (as the advertising goes - the "Hottest Corolla Ever!") - but if it was the hottest corolla ever - it wasn't saying much about any of the Corollas that have proceeded it. It drove like a tank (probably would flip like a 4WD) and felt cheap and nasty - more so than my "Hottest Pulsar Ever".

Fortunately - we had a earlier model of the "Hottest Corolla Ever" and it handled better than the "Hottest Corolla Ever" - so "Hotness" doesn't really equate with "Quality" - although Ant wasn't such a big fan of the fact that the car had done 40000 Kms - quite a bit for a hire car. Damn u hertz!

We made our way from the airport and I was playing "navigator" with the fold out paper Auckland St map - trying to channel my orienteering skills from year 5 at school (or lack of orienteering skills). I was also playing "radio nazi" - trying to pick thru all of Auckland's 58 urban music channels. Damn u bad NZ R&B music!

It was about a 25 min or so drive to the Hotel which was sort of on the outskirts of the CBD. We had booked a couple of nights at the Quest on Nelson - one of those fully furnished apartments. It was pretty big - a one bedroom unit with a lounge room (complete with windows facing onto the next door apartments) and a laundry/bathroom (complete with windows facing onto the next door apartments)... u like 2 watch don't u...!

Feeling a little peckish - we head into town to get some lunch. Ant hsa this knack of picking the way through the seediest areas of places. We walked next to one of those Homeless Missions - complete with funky junkies - obviously a highlight of Auckland.

The main street (ironically called Queen Street - which is the same main street in Brisbane... which has a lot of similarities with Auckland) was a bit of a bomb-site. Basically the whole main street was being ripped up and re-sealed. This was a bit of an ongoing theme in NZ. Something striking down the main street was the overabundance of Australian shops in NZ. JB's, Katmandu, Westpac, Billabong, Supre... Although Queen St strangely had a "Wendy's" fast food chain - something that Australia does not have (not that we want it anyway)... There was also the big Sky Tower (which wasn't built last time I had visited Auckland) - which is affiliated with Sky City (aka cheesy casino at Sydney) - and I'm guessing it is Australian owned or something.

Ant having been a visitor twice before to the shores of NZ) headed in the vague general direction of where he thought Auckland's eat street was - but instead we found Auckland's "Irish Pub" street. Because our stomachs had the better of us - we settled for one of the Irish Pubs for lunch. I had a lasagne and Ant had a hamburger and we both had a pint of some NZ beer (so beginneth the NZ drinking...). Everything was genuine 1997 prices - 12 NZ pesos for the lasagne (which you need to divide by 1.15 to equate it to Australian pesos - which i needed a calculator). The food was good and so to the beer.

We wandered back to Queen Street and Ant had to go to the Britomart. No - it isn't a Tesco owned supermarket - rather Auckland's new/flash train station. Yes - Ant is a trainspotter and he had to complete his "Trainspotting" experience (after seeing the junkies near the mission) by going to a train station. Ant got a bit of a thrill after the Britomart. Because I was feeling somewhat tipsy after the pint of beer - I helped myself to a cornetto (so beginneth the NZ bad eating). It was genuine 2003 prices.

I finally convinced Ant to leave the Britomart and do something else - so we headed to Auckland Harbour (which was pretty much a stone throw away from the Britomart). The harbour was pretty - but it ain't no Sydney Harbour...~! We walked along a wharf to get a better perspective of both the harbour and the city. We both sort of noticed that it feels a little more economically depressed than Australia. The wharf was full of empty shops and for lease signs. Even the Hilton felt a little ghetto 80s-style.

We wandered around the nearby (what I dub Auckland's) Cockel Bay - a Darling Harbour-esque swag of ritzy restaurants - at genuine 2004 Darling Harbour prices...! Neeocye!

Feeling a bit lethargic (damn qantas for getting me up at 4:30am!) - we both head back to the hotel where I crash for an hour or two. Ant, being the avid tourist that he is, decides to hit streets for a bit more of a mosey around the place.

NZ TV was a little on the bizzaro side. They seem to import a lot of Aussie shows - they were about 2 weeks behind Australia with "So You Can Think You Can Dance Australia" (damn I hate u Natalie Basingwaithe you talentless whore!) and about 8 months behind Australia with "Chasers War on Everything" (APEC episode)... Plus the reception at Quest on Nelson was a little bizzaro or non-functional at times.

To Be Continued (when I can be stuffed writing this..~!)

Sheep Luv Tour Day One Continued...

We got off the late flight into Sydney and ran/pushed over every man/woman/grannie in order to get to the immigration queue first... which we did.

Despite Qantas' best attempts to delay us from getting to the LAN Chile flight to NZ - we managed to have 20 mins or so spare before the flight in the International departure gates. Ant knew that we weren't entitled to the Qantas Club - even though we were both members. If you are flying on a LAN flight with Qantas Club - you technically can't use the lounges... So Ant was feeling a bit nervous about attempting to get into the lounge. Despite him being a nervous wreck - I thought it was still worth a shot - just as long as we play the "dumb ignorant" routine.

The Qantas Club looked like it had been renovated since my last trip to Italy (via South Africa and England). There were a couple of door b$$ches positioned at right at the front door. We both nervously handed over our boarding passes and Qantas Club cards. Thankfully - the dittzy woman served us not the astute guy - and she seemed to press a few keys on her keyboard and said "Everything is fine... Come on thru..!". It pays not to know the rules Ant!

We logged onto the computers for 10 or 15 mins where I blogged the first part of this blog. Ant was busy trying to check for accommodation at Taupo but was cut short because we had to board our flight.

The LAN queue was a bit of a rockshow. It had felt like they had called everyone too early from the lounge as we had to wait for about 10mins to board. The hostesses/hosties all seemed to have thick South American accents and a poor grasp of the English language. Although we were only on this flight till Auckland - we both got the sense that we were on our way to South America and we both experienced a lot of flashbacks. Flicking thru the magazine on board - we saw a lot of places that we had been to in both Chile and Argentina (including the "Galleria" mall in Buenos Aires where we both had ice creams on the first day (can't forget something like that..!).

The flight was a little strange - with the attendants not understanding what a "Diet Coke" was (they had Coke Light - shipped all the way from Chile...), my TV screen didn't work for the whole flight (it froze on the "Who Wants to Be A Millionare?" game screen - embarssment). We were served (wait for this...) toasted cheese sandwiches (defintely a flash back to the bad cuisine that you can have at Chile). The lack of a functional TV screen probably forced me to get some much needed sleep on the flight.

Upon arrival at Auckland - everyone had to get off the plane. Most were just transiting through to Santiago - but there were a handful of people getting off at Auckland including us. Probably the only country in the world where Aussies can feel special - Australians and NZ's had their own queue thru immigration. Apparently - we can go over to NZ and work and live for how ever the fudge we want to and not get kicked out of the country... yeh! Immigration and customs were fairly painless - I sort of hoped to get on the NZ version of "Border Security" and create a big scene (..."Someone must of lodged those condoms of coke in me whilst I was sleeping!"...) but alas it wasn't going to happen.

Ant n Nick's Sheep Luv Tour 2008 - Day One

Although this trip is only for a week and we are only going to Australia's seventh state (aka New Zealand) - because it is technically an "international trip" - so we might as well blog this on this site....

I have never had a strong desire to go to Sheep-Luv Land (aka NZ) - but Ant "thoughtfully" bought me some plane tickets last year for my birthday. (Does anyone remember the episode of the Simpsons where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball for her birthday and gets "Homer" engraved on the ball...?" (Anyway - I haven't bought Ant a birthday present yet for Feb so I should shut up now)...

Our flight from Canberra was a 6:45am flight - so that had meant we had to get up at the ungodly hour (on the ungodly day that is Easter Saturday) at 5am... Our taxi was 5 mins late - and Ant was about to call Canberra Cabs to complain - but the taxi appeared and we got in (despite the guy reaking of bad B.O and the meter was running before we set foot into the cab). The cab driver drove like "Crazy Taxi" - driving anywhere but the left hand lane at 40-50kms over the speed limit.

We checked in at the airport and made tracks to the Qantas Club - where we had breakfast and gorged ourselves stewpid.

We boarded our flight - and did a lot of sitting around on the tarmac... After about 1/2 an hour of this - the plane turned around and headed back to the terminal. Ant picked up on this fact before they announced that they were having "technical difficulties" and had to check something out. We sat around at the gate for another 15 minutes before saying that had to cancel the flight and we had to rebook onto another one.

Everyone poured off the flight (which was half-full thankfully). A stream of people made their way back to the Qantas Club (where I had noticed I had split youghurt onto my shirt earlier) and Ant did his magic with the Qantas Club lady to ensure that we were going to get onto the next flight to Sydney (because we were on a LAN Chille flight to Auckland on a separate ticket or something).

After about 10 minutes of waiting around in the Qantas Club (Ant had befriended some guy who was flying to Peru to do the Inca Trail... cancelled flights... Peru... sounds familiar??!) - the Qantas Door B%%ch announced that everyone had to go back down to the "arrival hall" and collect their bags and recheck onto the next flight... We then all marched outside and collected our bags (thank god we only had to wait 5 minutes instead of the usual 30 minutes at Canberra Airport) - and I raced over to the check in line (pushed a few grannies out of my way) - and we managed to get checked into the next Dash 8 flight to Sydney...

I managed to get "explosive trace searched" for the second time going thru security again... We walked back to the Qantas Club (our third time today) and plonked down in front of the Foxtel TV - feeling rather exhausted (sad given the lack of distance we have travelled thus far).

As soon as we sat down - we noticed it was the final call for our flight to Sydney. It was one of those new Dash-8 bug smashers - a little bit bigger than those regular bug smashers to sydney. The plane was chockers - and Ant and I had to sit separately. I was next to some dumb kiwi guy and Ant was seated next to some old grannie. The flight was fairly bumpy and I felt a little off...

2 b continued....