The Journey to New Zealand

Let me preface this entry by saying that on my journey here, if it could go wrong it did. I will try to briefly hit the highlights of my more miserable moments...I stress briefly because I could probably go on for pages about them (yes it was that bad…and yes I’ll probably go on for pages). I'll begin with my arrival in Los Angeles at about 8:45 pm, Friday January 25.

I collected my luggage without undue aggravation and proceeded outside to locate the hotel shuttle pick-up area. Upon arrival at said area I was encouraged to see about three different shuttles, albeit for hotels other than mine. My fifty pound backpack strapped on I figured it wouldn't be that long until my shuttle arrived and I could get some much needed food and rest (the sum total of things I'd eaten thus far included a bagel, a handful of trail mix, and a couple bites of crumb cake). When twenty minutes had drug by and no shuttle had appeared I decided to call the hotel and politely inquire as to when it might be showing up. The man at the desk informed me that this particular hotel's shuttle ran only on the hour every hour. I looked at the time on my cell phone - 9:45 - fine, I could wait 15 more minutes (as if I really had a choice). However, I wasn't prepared to wait the 35 minutes it actually took for the shuttle to finally arrive and was more than a little annoyed at having waited out in the cold for over an hour with 50 pounds strapped to my back. Nor was I prepared to deal with the twenty people who filed off the shuttle into the small hotel lobby with all their oversize luggage, kids, and animals. It was a melee of human bodies all tripping over each other, the bags, the kids, cursing and talking loudly in at least three different languages. When it was finally my turn to check in (by now being primed to kill someone) I was given my key and told something like the following, "You room, to get there you go down corridor number one, just through door here, then turn left at next corridor, walk around pool, turn down next corridor to right, then once more left, you see stair, go past first stair to second stair, go up stair then another left, turn down next corridor left again and you find room." I stared blankly back at the man, picked up my room key, and started down corridor number one. Off course I got lost and ended up dragging all 80 pounds of luggage up two different flights of stairs. By the time I actually found my room I was swearing with every step. I opened the door and unceremoniously threw all the bags into a heap on the floor, thought briefly about kicking them a few times for some stress therapy, and decided instead to go try and locate something to eat. I proceeded back out through the labyrinth hotel to Denny's, the only option for dinner at that time of the night and attached to the hotel...somewhere. I ate my French toast dinner all the while being talked to by an older man who wished to regale me with tales of all his life's adventures. I finished dinner and fled back to my room (down nine corridors) and crashed into bed. Little did I realize that this was just the beginning...I awoke the next morning with almost twelve hours to kill before my flight left for Fiji. I had some things I needed to mail so figured I'd take care of that and get a late check-out while I was at it. I was told at the front desk that the late check-out was fine but they had no mailing capabilities...but there was a post office - two and a half miles away! Having nothing better to do I decided to make the trek to the post office and back. I returned from my jaunt with enough time to take a shower and check my e-mail (at $5.00 per 15 minutes) before having to catch the shuttle back to LAX. There the torture began anew...it took three hours to get my bags checked, another 30 minutes to clear security only to discover the terminal had no restaurants (who's ever heard of a terminal without restaurants), so back out to the main airport to eat (having not eaten all day I was a little bit hungry at this point), to discover my first choice of restaurant had nothing I could eat after I'd already ordered a beer, then guzzling the beer and paying for it, to the second restaurant where I finally got to eat and then back through security. At the gate I met a nice girl from Denmark who informed me the flight was actually eleven hours as opposed to the seven I thought it was going to be. Despite its length the flight proved to be uneventful and I even managed to sleep for part of it. We landed in Fiji and the next round of suffering began...

Back at LAX they had not ticketed me through to Auckland (which I thought odd at the time but was too frustrated to question) so when we disembarked in Fiji I was a little confused about what to do. I waited in the line for transit and transfers (because that seemed reasonable to me being what I was supposed to do, transfer to a plane to take me to New Zealand) only to be told my flight didn't leave for seven hours - that I'd have to collect my luggage and that I wouldn’t be able to check it or get ticketed to New Zealand until 11:00 which was four hours away. Shit. What was I going to do for seven hours at the Fiji airport, half of which I'd be tied down by 80 pounds of gear?! As if that wasn’t bad enough I was now going to have to clear Fiji customs and immigration…just so I could go sit in a different part of the airport! This almost proved catastrophic for amongst my carry-on luggage was an innocuous apple I'd purchased for $1.50 at LAX in case I got hungry on the flight. The quarantine officer found the apple when my purse went through the x-ray machine and I got pulled aside and asked to open my purse. Out came the offending apple and the officer said "what's this" I answered "an apple" to which I was told "...this not allowed, you can go jail for this". Go to jail over a $1.50 apple I'd forgotten was in my purse when I was never even going to leave the airport in the first place? You've got to be joking! The officer then whipped out a pen and began writing me a citation for being the owner of an unallowed apple...better than jail I suppose! After the apple incident I spent seven very uncomfortable, hot (for all intents and purposes there was no air conditioning in the airport) hours just sitting and waiting to get the hell out for Fiji. When we finally lifted off and were headed to New Zealand I heaved a huge sigh of relief...which was a bit premature as it turns out.

Upon arrival in New Zealand my luggage was one of the first batches to come out on the belt so I picked it up and headed to customs and immigration. The customs officer called me forward and began scanning my documents - all seemed to be going well until she asked for a copy of my visa. They never sent me one I told her at which time and she informed me that I was supposed to print it off the internet (no where in all my correspondence with New Zealand immigration did I ever read that...in fact being told that all my pertinent information would be in the computer system upon arrival). This answer did not in any way impress the stone faced customs lady who proceeded to lecture me on my duties as a traveler and ask why she should let me in on a visa I could not produce. For the second time that day I began to have visions of going to jail or being deported from the country within 20 minutes of arrival. I thought briefly of asking to be let in on the standard passport stay of three months - until she asked for my return ticket (which of course I didn't have it being an e-ticket) which gave my return date as September 20, 2008...well past the three months allowed for a visit solely on a passport. I handed her my handwritten record of my return ticket information and got a second lecture on why handwritten records were also unacceptable. Luckily for me after the double tongue lashing she told me to print out both documents when I got to the city, stamped my passport and ushered me through! Fairly worked up at this point I proceeded to inspections where I had to go through the “Items to Declare” line as I had both foods (trail mix and chocolate but I wasn’t going to tempt fate a second time after the whole apple incident) and tramping gear i.e. hiking boots and my tent. The food was apparently fine this time but the tent and boots needed to be inspected by hand. This meant I had to unpack my entire backpack, the tent being at the bottom of course. I obligingly handed over the items in question and received my third lecture of the hour – this one about the dangers of hiking in the backcountry. After the lecture I was told they would need to take my tent to a separate room to inspect it for “foreign insects” and that I should proceed through X-ray screening after which I my tent would be returned to me. I repacked my backpack sans tent and walked over to the X-ray screening area only to be told that the poles that were still in my backpack would also need to be inspected. I once more unpacked the backpack, handed over the offending poles, repacked the backpack and walked, completely deflated, through the security doors and officially into New Zealand. I waited despondently until my tent was returned to me…stuffed haphazardly into the tent bag at approximately three times the volume I had handed it to them in. To frustrated to give a damn I pulled the tent out right there in the airport lobby and folded it up into a nice, neat little package and repacked my backpack – for the third time in thirty minutes. By now terrified to venture any further and feeling abjectly miserable I just stood there for about 10 minutes trying to regroup. I figured my next move should be to get some actual New Zealand cash from the ATM so I could pay for the bus ride into Auckland…a simple process I thought I could handle even in my current state of mind. I dragged my luggage over to the ATM, inserted my card, entered my PIN, and waited for the machine to spit out my money. Instead, the machine ate my card, told me it would not give me any money, and suggested I contact my financial institution! Conveniently, the phone number to my financial institution was on the back of the card the machine had just confiscated and it being sometime in the wee hours of the morning where my “financial institution” was located there was little likelihood of me “contacting” them. Now the sole source of money I was depending on was gone with no way of knowing how long it would take for me to actually have access to it again. By some stroke of fortune I had kept a $100 bill on me which I proceeded to change into New Zealand dollars which would allow me actually leave the airport. I somehow found my way to the bus terminal, paid my fare, and stared listlessly out the window having no idea where I was going, when I was supposed to get off, and not being able to summon the energy to actually care. At the next pickup point at the airport a friendly British guy, Simon, sat down next to me and must have picked up on my misery. He cheerfully told me that once in the city I could get off at his stop and he’d walk me to the inner city bus that for $1.60 would drop me off very near the hostel I’d be staying at in Parnell. Simon proved true to his word and walked me directly to the bus stop, carrying half my luggage, and departed with many wishes for a great trip in New Zealand. Despite all his help I still managed to miss my bus stop in Parnell as I didn’t realize you had to “ring” when you wanted the bus to actually stop and let you off.

Upon arrival at the hostel no one was at the office so I picked up the outside phone according to the note on the door and dialed the manager. He eventually picked up he asked if I could wait on the porch as he was just ten minutes up the road. He arrived with his wife and three young daughters in tow about fifteen minutes later and explained apologetically that he’d overbooked the hostel for the evening and there was no room for me. However, I was to be put up at his wife’s bed and breakfast in a room all to myself at no additional fee and would be transported back to the Lantana Hostel the next day. I quickly agreed and he ushered me into the backseat of his car, next to his two daughters and all their toys, and we all proceeded across town to the Freeman’s Bed and Breakfast. Both wife and husband were extremely cordial and I was more than happy to have a room all to myself…even if only for one night. I was shown my room, given a map showing where some local restaurants were, and the wife’s personal phone number in case I got lost, so she could come pick me up! I headed out to acquire some dinner and found a lovely little Thai restaurant where I had a truly delicious curry and a wonderful local New Zealand beer. I also decided I wouldn’t be dining out a great deal as prices were rather on the expensive side, dinner setting me back close to $30.00 (on my credit card as I had very little cash due to reasons explained earlier)! I walked back to the hostel in the dark and collapsed into bed - my hellish journey to New Zealand finally at an end!

The Adventure Begins

On January 25, 2008 I will be flying out of sunny Tampa, FL to embark on what I'm sure will be an epic adventure that will take me literally half way around the world to the land down under...New Zealand and Australia! A land known for spectacular scenery and every sort of outdoor amazing adventure you can imagine - from rock climbing, to surfing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, sky diving, tramping, white water rafting, caving, and checking out some seriously cool volcanoes, to sipping on some very fine locally produced wines and enjoying the well known hospitality of the Kiwis - all of which I plan on doing and more! Unfortunately, in pursuit of such an adventure I will be leaving behind friends and family whom I will miss very much. As I am traveling pretty much by the seat of my pants i.e. having no idea what location I will be staying in much less what the accommodations will be (tent, back seat of a car, some strangers couch, hut, with the occasional hostel thrown in so that I can get take a shower every now and then) I have no way of estimating how much contact I will have with the outside world. This is still a predominately rural nation whose sheep population outnumbers its human population 20 to 1! That said I would love to promise that I will be in touch on a regular basis and be able to update everyone in person about how things are going but taking a pragmatic approach it is unlikely that this will translate into reality. Therefore it is my hope that by starting this blog I will be able to update it from time to time (likely those rare evenings when I get to take a real shower and sleep in a real bed albeit a bunk bed in a room with 10 other people) and those of you who are interested in checking out what I'm up to or maybe to just find out if I'm still alive can do so in a (hopefully) easy manner (I'm sure there area few of you who won't be able to figure this whole "blog" thing out before I'm back...you know who you are, lol)!