Saturday, February 9: Some rain on the approach, a couple of showers on the way into town otherwise becoming sunny and hot
Nadia’s (airbnb, $62.1)
Spent some time watching the flight path while listening to the music, and tried to decipher the Arabic signs for what are almost always transliterations of the Latin alphabet. Sunrise was becoming visible as we flew over Kingsford-Smith itself. Then after a longer lull there was a rush for breakfast (I had the scrambled eggs) and the collection of all of the used equipment before landing. My English neighbors were going on a cruise; apart from that they had owned a house in Spain for some period of his retirement, and so were obviously Brexit opponents. Anyway after landing they were keen to get off & I wished them well, then looked for and found the pen I needed to fill out the entry form in the top compartment of the pack, and not in the satellite vanity bag where it should have been. Anyway there was enough time to fill out the form while I waited for people to actually move forward. In doing so I had dropped the passport into the chunderbag pouch and everything had to be systematically searched before the pack could be closed, and by then movement along the aisle was possible.
It was fifteen minutes from standstill to terminal, another fifteen minutes to get to passport control & through the automated system, collect the Bundy and start the next fifteen minute wait for the suitcase. On towards customs where I was required to display the boots & surrender the tent, which was followed by an x-ray of everything. I was outside in less than an hour in total but had been told that the tent inspection might last ten minutes so off I went to fill up some water, buy the Auckland Transport HOP card, and wait around for a couple of minutes at the biosecurity counter which then proceeded to open with my tent for return.
Once truly out of the airport a SkyBus was waiting & ready to go. I had bought a return ticket online for $34 which saved $4 over buying two single tickets in person. The bus driver explained overabundantly clearly each stop (“No.1 Mt Eden Road” to which only Monty Python’s No. 1 The Larch came to mind) and well within an hour we were at the last stop in Customs St where a TMK bus was also waiting. Two kids asked me (moi!) if I knew if the bus was going to the aquarium, and then we too were off.
No trouble finding the place here, the key and the wifi password. Had a shower and put on some fresh things, then fired up the computer & had a couple of messages from Rayna to deal with. Put her off until I could get some shopping done & with that out of the way got her on Skype and she came over, drove me down to the foreshore where we had a couple of slices of pizza for $15 at Sal’s, which was enough.
Back here we tried booking a pair of tickets for Tiritiri but only one was available, so that is not going to take place. The alternative will be doing a couple of walks around here, and for me Ferg’s evening Rangitoto tour, leaving Monday for the PLB and Tom. Am beginning to feel the unwind.
Evening spent entertaining two South Korean guests, both female, one chemist and one pharmacologist.
