Our lovely friend Rob brought us to the airport with our new bike cases and the rest of the luggage on an unusually warm Calgary day in January for our Westjet flight to Honolulu (HNL). There was some trepidation about the level of scrutiny the U.S. border guys would give us but we went through that, and security, in record time, perhaps, due to the Nexus cards we now have. Westjet got us to HNL without issue and we took the hotel shuttle to our airport hotel for the night. The hotel itself was underwhelming and expensive for our 8 hour stay. Back to HNL on the 6:00am shuttle we went, only to discover the Air NZ flight was delayed by more than an hour, leaving us lamenting the extra hour of sleep we missed. But, Air NZ made up for it in lovely service, great food, and the luxury of their ‘skycouch’ which we opted for. This upgrade gave us an entire row with a footrest that raised 90 degrees creating a platform to snooze on. Getting through NZ customs was also easy, and off we went by pre-booked shuttle to our hotel in the Parnell suburb. The weather all over the North Island was, unfortunately, ‘wit’ (kiwi word for wet). In fact the next day it set precipitation records in some parts, even causing deaths from landslides, and flooding roads in areas that we plan to go to in the near future. Happily the rain has stopped now and is not expected to that degree in the week ahead. The Parnell hotel turned out to be perfect for our needs and the 3 days in Auckland went by quickly. We missed some outdoor activities we had planned, but did get to the Auckland Museum. The museum houses exhibits on natural history, NZ history, Maori culture, and included a Maori Cultural Experience/performance. It was all well worth the price of admission. The rain quit overnight on Thursday and we headed to the ferry for Waiheke Island, riding on the left side of the road very cautiously, and successfully completed a few right hand turns into the correct lane! I should mention that the hotel did give us a momentary scare saying they had no room to store our luggage and the unknown employee who okayed this months ago never should have. After seeing for ourselves there was room in their luggage room we convinced the manager it would work, and she acquiesced. Yikes, all over again? We took an earlier ferry than planned as we had time, and we are very happy with our first few hours on Waiheke. Island vibes definitely and the sun came out in full force in the afternoon. We are staying in a suite within a local lady’s house. The host is lovely and the suite has everything we need.
geeteetravels 