I’m no fan of flying, but sometimes it’s the only way to get to where you want to be. This certainly is true for getting to New Zealand, which is on the other side of the world, and is where I recently flew to visit our oldest daughter, Jane, who has lived there for about twelve years with her husband Matt, a New Zealander, and their two daughters, Nixie and Elka. It was a 19 day trip in total, but only two weeks involved actually being there. The other five days involved getting there and back by plane. Many planes. This was my first visit to New Zealand because an earlier planned trip in Spring 2020 had been canceled by Covid.
Being in New Zealand was fabulous, but getting there sure wasn’t: I flew out of Boston to Houston, and from Houston I was to fly on to Auckland, NZ, and then to Christchurch, where Jane’s family lives; but that didn’t happen. There were tornadoes in Houston resulting in my plane sitting on the runway while my next flight across the Pacific, to the other side of the world, took off without me. My luggage however, did make the flight, so of course it was nowhere to be found once I finally got to the Christchurch airport.
The next day, thanks to the joint efforts of Jen, Jane and our travel agent, I was on my way again, but this time via San Francisco. The second time was the charm, and all flights went off on time, with the only odd thing being that I had an eleven hour layover in San Francisco before I took off again, which I was able to spend in the United Airlines club, paid for courtesy of United Airlines. This time I did get on the 14 hour flight across the Pacific, landing without incident in Christchurch.
I’m no fan of flying, but sometimes it’s the only way to get to where you want to be. This certainly is true for getting to New Zealand, which is on the other side of the world, and is where I recently flew to visit our oldest daughter, Jane, who has lived there for about twelve years with her husband Matt, a New Zealander, and their two daughters, Nixie and Elka. It was a 19 day trip in total, but only two weeks involved actually being there. The other five days involved getting there and back by plane. Many planes. This was my first visit to New Zealand because an earlier planned trip in Spring 2020 had been canceled by Covid.
Being in New Zealand was fabulous, but getting there sure wasn’t: I flew out of Boston to Houston, and from Houston I was to fly on to Auckland, NZ, and then to Christchurch, where Jane’s family lives; but that didn’t happen. There were tornadoes in Houston resulting in my plane sitting on the runway while my next flight across the Pacific, to the other side of the world, took off without me. My luggage however, did make the flight, so of course it was nowhere to be found once I finally got to the Christchurch airport.
The next day, thanks to the joint efforts of Jen, Jane and our travel agent, I was on my way again, but this time via San Francisco. The second time was the charm, and all flights went off on time, with the only odd thing being that I had an eleven hour layover in San Francisco before I took off again, which I was able to spend in the United Airlines club, paid for courtesy of United Airlines. This time I did get on the 14 hour flight across the Pacific, landing without incident in Christchurch.
And the ocean is everywhere: Before getting to NZ I thought maybe I’d try surfing (which I did as a young teenager), but gave that idea up immediately. I went to a popular surfing spot called “the meat grinder”… just large rounded rocks instead of sand, little stinging jellyfish everywhere, the water was freezing, and 8 foot waves. Then, in the ocean by the bach, about 40 feet from shore, orcas were feeding. Their dorsal fins alone stuck four feet out of the water. I never went in the ocean once.
The drive to the bach really got my attention! New Zealand has an extremely rugged landscape, with lots of high, steep mountains that have narrow windy roads with no guardrails, along 200 foot high cliffs. The road from the bach, to a place where we spent a few days, involved traveling up such a road while pulling a large boat, which certainly convinced me not to use my international drivers license, especially since NZ was a British colony, and consequently they still drive on the “wrong side” of the road.
I had the huge advantage of knowing people in New Zealand already, but in terms of just a place to visit, it’s exotic, safe, everyone speaks English (the accent takes a while to understand), and it’s an incredible place. However, keep in mind that not only is it far away, but it’s quite expensive (my flight was $6500, and a business class fight would have been double that). The expense, however, is offset quite a bit by the strength of the American dollar compared to the New Zealand dollar. I had my credit card set up to use in NZ, which translated the actual charge to US dollars, resulting in about a 45% discount in stores. This was partially offset by the higher prices in general in NZ, but regardless, the US dollar goes a long way in New Zealand.