Kia Ora

I’m baccckkk! I fell in love with New Zealand, and myself, during my first visit here in February 2018. On that trip I swiped the side view mirror off the car after hydroplaning and over-correcting in a massive typhoon, less than 45 minutes after I pulled away from the airport. As I drove back to the airport to mea culpa and swap the car I contemplated just getting on the next flight back home. But I didn’t. I had a low key night feeling sorry for myself in an AirBnB and the next day, while visiting Hobbiton, declared, “I’m going on an adventure!” That trip sparked my love of adventure and taught me how to appreciate myself and value myself. Five and a half years later this is my third visit to this beautiful country and I’m curious to see how it touches my soul now.

Flying here was uneventful, an easy eight hour flight from Honolulu. I’ve only flown direct from California before but breaking it up and taking a day flight actually worked out pretty well. With a shorter flight that didn’t require sleeping all I needed was a premium class seat to be happy. Brunch on the flight also helped keep me happy with chia seed pudding, French toast with peaches and berries, a delightful sparkling rose, and a stewardess walking up and down the aisle chiming, “Bakery?!” in a sing song voice straight out of a Disney movie, while hocking croissants and toast. I could feel the sugar high surging through me as I devoured the sweet breakfast, not a meal I would normally indulge in.

I passed the time on the flight easily; watched some Netflix, ate a couple meals, chatted with the Aussie next to me, researched ideas for my coming days, and booked a few things to help my itinerary shape-up. The Aussie mentioned that she had lived in Los Angeles for a year; I told her that I was from California and originally from not far from LA; earnestly she looked at me and declared, “I know, I can tell from your Southern California accent.” I’m not sure how I feel about that or if that was a good or bad thing to her but I didn’t want to ask. Regardless, she has inspired me to try to make Australia happen in 2024.

Watching the land grow closer beneath the plane as the flight approached Auckland I felt a sense of familiarity and ease; I’m here! I was the 3rd person off the plane and hightailed it towards passport control. My airport flex (one of them) is not using the people mover walkways and still moving faster than those who do. Auckland has numerous e-passport control stations and a few old fashioned booths with agents. I learned on my first trip that using the e-passport control meant no passport stamp so I quickly found the right line for an agent. My main driver was that stamp but in reality, I only had one person ahead of me in line while the kiosks had lines 15-20 people deep. When the older gentleman manning the passport control booth asked me who I was traveling with and I informed him that I was solo he raised an eyebrow and dug in to peppering me with questions about my plans and details. I’ve never had an agent in any country ask me so many questions before and make me explain my itinerary, name trails I was going to take, provide details of my car rental; I may be being neurotic here but I think he was old school and a woman traveling alone threw him off.

In under half an hour I was off the plane, through passport control, through luggage inspection, and approaching the car rental counter. I walked up to find a sign that the rental agent was on break and would be back in 20 minutes. I let out a deep sigh and the man passing me stopped, looked at me, mimicked my sigh, turned around and walked through a door, reappearing in the booth in front of me. I had thwarted his break! Unlike the older gentleman at passport control, this older gentleman was congenial and friendly. We joked about my screwing up his break and he commended me for such a complete and clean reservation with all my information properly in place. As I handed him my visa I made the comment that “Visa, because Amex doesn’t cover New Zealand” and he was surprised I knew that. In the final review of my reservation he told me he was going to override one of my selections if I didn’t mind and kindly lowered my accident coverage deductible from $3,300 NZD to $650 NZD. I explained to him how I had learned the hard was about the Amex coverage so this was extra appreciated.

I found my way to the rental car park, it’s entirely different than it was five years ago, and loaded my suitcase and pack into my Toyota RAV4, my chariot for the next 10 days. I sat in the car for an inordinate amount of time, psyching myself up to once again drive from the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road. I have had anxiety about this for days. Slowly pulling out of the parking stall I almost clipped the car on my left, forgetting how much car was to my left, and had to really concentrate on how to go to the right without doing any damage.

At the very least, I only had half an hour to drive this evening. Since I was arriving in early evening I booked a night at the Park Hyatt Auckland to get settled before I hit the road for more adventurous pastures tomorrow. That is already a marked difference for this trip from my previous visits. Before I was so anxious to just hit the road and get going, not a minute could be lost, while at this stage in the game I find myself much more chill and feeling less like I have to rush to get to the good stuff.

The first mile felt a bit hairy but I started to settle in to where the car needed to be in the lane. With the newer technology over the last five years the Rav actually let me know the one time I started to drift too far to my left so that is going to be helpful. Pulling into the Park Hyatt I knew that there was no way I was ready to park it tightly and awkwardly pulled into the middle of the driveway, waiting for a valet to scurry out.

This is my first time staying at the Park Hyatt Auckland and it is lovely. My room was upgraded to a nice corner harbor view suite and they even got my feather-free pillow request right! Even more excitedly, there was a welcome amenity set for me, marinated buffalo cheese and grilled bread, the cheese being local from the Clevedon Buffalo Co and marinated in garlic and thyme. A dark chocolate toasted coconut bar was a secondary treat, laid out on the bed. I settled into the lovely room and sat down to try this cheese. O.M.G. It is maybe the best cheese I have ever eaten. It spread like an airy marshmallow cloud onto the toasty bread and was heaven on the tastebuds. I already reached out to Clevedon to see if they do any type of farm visits and am scheming to see if I can get any home.

My euphoria was burst when I finished eating and got up to move about the room; sharply bashing my shin into the exposed hard wooden corner of the banquette. Seriously?! I haven’t even gotten out of the city yet and I am already injured? The pain shot through my shin and I discovered that I bled through my leggings as I felt the sizable bump that immediately erupted on my leg. Awesome.

Also awesome, I feel like I may be getting a cold. And my normal bag of travel meds is nowhere to be found. Perhaps it’s in my bag that C is bringing for me to Hawaii next week? Perhaps it’s still at home? Who knows, but it’s not here. To let myself reset and take advantage of this beautiful space I decided it was a room service and bath type of evening.

One thing I love about other countries is that they don’t gauge like in the US for so many things. For example, room service. The room service is the same menu and exact same pricing as the restaurant without any added fees. It was an oysters and salad type of night. Both delightful. The oysters also some of the best I’ve had. I have no idea what kind they were but they were so fresh, so subtle, and perfectly shucked. The freshness was palpable.

Epsom salts in the bathroom were a nice touch for the bath and I lounged while trying to decide if I’m going to try to get high tea from Zealong in Hamilton on my way to Waitomo tomorrow. I’m still undecided. I’ll figure it out in the morning. I’m also undecided if those are privacy screens on the windows or if the floor-to-ceiling windows in the bathroom mean everyone outside got a view.

My bags are now all reorganized for adventure time with my hiking pack and smaller cross body pack properly stocked for tomorrow. The only sad realization, aside from my meds bag, is that I left my favorite retractable charging cable and a power thingy on the airplane. Oh well. I plan to head out of Auckland sometime tomorrow morning, how early will depend on if I decid to go by Zealong but I’m hoping to be at a Kiwi conservation center before I get into glow worming later in the afternoon. Let the fun begin!