Another beautiful morning as I arose around 7 and headed into the house to do some reading of my text material to get ready to start a paper that was due on Sunday. The blue sky with the sunrise was absolutely magnificent and very motivating to start the day. Jacob made an appearance by 730, Krista miraculously by 8 and Nicholas shortly thereafter, mad at us for all ‘leaving him alone’ in the cottage a mere 50 ft. from the bach where we were all in the living room.
Krista went and did a bunch of packing and the boys began a final game of Settlers of Catan before leaving. Krista had a much awaited hot shower as we were conserving water for the last 3 days and were doing all our bathing in the ocean. She was quite excited to be squeaky clean for our journey today.
After some breakfast and goodbye hugs, we departed down the driveway with the entire clan of Bayldons and friends all lined up the drive from tallest to shortest ( 8 in total ) chanting ‘Thank you for coming’ while waving both arms in unison forward and backward. It was quite a send-off as we headed along the windy roads back to the main highway and into Auckland.
Once we got on the main thoroughfare, we were making great time to the city. We went over the massive bridge and into downtown with the enormous Auckland tower looming overhead as it cut into the deep blue morning sky. Auckland is a beautiful city only slightly larger than Calgary with about 1.2 million people. We headed over to a t-shirt shop to do a bit of shopping. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonald’s so the boys weren’t starving for our little hike.
We arrived at the One Tree Hill volcano sight and parked about 2/3 of the way up. We hiked up the rest of the way travelling through a huge crater and up the sides and then the road to the top where a huge pillar liked to Auckland’s version of the Washington Monument reached for the sky. From the top, you had an amazing 360 degree view of the city reaching out to the sea as well as inland. After a few photos, we made our way down to the car and down towards the airport.
We stopped at a Factory Outlet store for some amazing clothing that was recommended to us by Helen, Extremely warm and breathable shirts that would be great for skiing. There was a 60% off sale on much of it so we bought one for each of us and a couple gifts and made our way closer to the airport in search of our rental car shop. After much dilly dallying around, we finally got proper directions to the place and it turns out it was 2 blocks down from the bloody shirt shop where we had started out thirty minutes prior. We cleaned out the million things and packed all our suitcases and bags into the transport van and bid farewell to our lovely little red hatchback. It had done us well across the north island and was fun to drive.
We arrived at the airport and got checked in easily as it was not busy at 230 in the afternoon. We did some shopping but the prices were absolutely atrocious of course. We should have stopped at a mall prior to getting there as we had lots of time, but we wanted to be sure we weren’t running late. Krista found some Ugg boots so she was happy about that after having been looking for the last 3 weeks for an affordable pair. We had a quick bite of sushi and headed through security. Jacob unfortunately had a water bottle in his backpack so we got a dirty look or two as they deposited it in the garbage and scribbled something on his immigration card as we headed in. Krista got her turn for the full pat down and bomb material check as randomly performed on people now and again – Darren had his in Sydney last week.
We headed to the departure side and had two hours to kill. The boys played video games at the Apple store and we grabbed a bite to eat at Burger King and headed out at 530pm. The Air NZ flight was fairly bare bones with a charge for everything from food to movies. We invested in a sandwich pack for $10 and were surprised to find that we could watch pre-recorded tv programs for free. Thank goodness as the boys were getting bored and we had a three hour flight. Time flew as we watched many tv shows and finally arrived in Sydney at 630 their time but 830 NZ time. After getting our bags and wandering down to the McDonald’s yet again, Devin met us and we snuck out of the airport before our 15 minutes was up and didn’t have to pay a dime – perfect timing.
By the time we got the boys home, fed and showered, it was 9 their time but 11 in our mind from NZ. Knowing full well that the Wiggins kids would be up bloody early, we all went to bed to get some rest after a busy day of travel and bidding farewell to New Zealand after a great couple weeks there.
No comments:
Post a Comment