Days 1-3

The flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles was uneventful. We left Phoenix Friday night at 6PM and connected with our flight to Auckland at around 10PM. We bought "Premium Economy" tickets so our seats were more like first class is on most flights. The Air New Zealand flight did have another class fancier than ours with seats that reclined flat like beds but they were prohibitively expensive. Still, our seats were comfortable enough to bear the 12-hour flight to Auckland. Once in Auckland and getting through customs, we took a 2-hour connecting flight to Queenstown at the southern-most part of the south island. That was pretty much the end of Day One. We missed Day Two because of travel and skipping a few time zones so we arrived in Queenstown Sunday morning. Before we left the airport in Queenstown, we had to do something about a phone because our phones don’t work here. We visited a “Vodaphone” kiosk and I bought a temporary SIM card to allow me to use my phone but it never worked right. From there we rented a car and headed to our Queenstown accommodations. Lorna did the driving and I freaked out in the passenger seat, sure that we were going to hit something. The whole notion of driving on the left-hand side of the road is still bizarre to me. We checked in at our hotel in Queenstown – a small Bed & Breakfast called The Dairy. Because Queenstown is so small and The Dairy is pretty much in the middle of town (not to mention that my knuckles were still white from my death grip on the passenger side handles), we walked. During the busy season, restaurants are open all day but we arranged to do this trip in a lull between busy seasons so the locals tend to tighten things up. Most of the restaurants in town are open for lunch and dinner with a gap between 2:00 and 5:00 when they close.  Although we went looking for a place to have lunch during the 2:00-5:00 gap, we did manage to find an Indian place on the main drag that was open. We spent the rest of the day walking through town to burn off the Indian food. One of the stops was a tram ride to the top of one of the mountains.

The rest of the day until supper involved walking forest trails and visiting wine bars. The weather ranged from 15-23C (60-75F) but all the walking made it seem toastier. The people were extremely friendly, which is a bit of a culture shock from home where people who don’t know each other just don’t talk, much less make eye contact. One of the interesting things about the people here is that there seem to be more foreigners on work visas than Kiwis (New Zealand citizens call themselves “Kiwis” after the national bird). The TRUE locals are the Maori but we didn't see any of them in town. The exchange rate for the NZ dollar was about .60 US so everything here cost a little over half of the NZ dollar value in US after the conversion. Although New Zealand is an English-speaking country, there are still a few differences that we have noticed: We have to do Fahrenheit/Centigrade conversion because they use Centigrade here and when we talk about our temperatures in Fahrenheit back home, nobody understands. Cars have the steering wheel on the right and they drive on the left side of the road. Signs that are common to us are different here: Way Out == EXIT Give Way == Yield Mind Your Head == (No corollary for this; normally it is assumed that if you bump your head, you deserve it for not being aware that the threat exists) At least there isn't a language barrier. Day 4: Guided wine tour of the Otago Region .. Back to Index