Live the Live ™

That’s the name Ava gave to the town of Rotorua, about two hours south of Auckland. Rotorua is a huge tourist trap, but it offers a few things that you won’t find in other New Zealand towns: Maori tribe experiences and the shows that go along with them…and a huge assortment of geothermal attractions like geysers, boiling mud pools and more. We made a stop to one of those places, Te Puia, and viewed these crazy churning pools from just a few feet away. We were in time to see the main geyser go off as well…and Kelly got some great shots that I’ll publish as soon as I can. 
It was another hour of driving from Rotorua to Taupo, where we are spending the night tonight, hoping to do a catamaran cruise of Lake Taupo in the morning, weather depending. Looks good right now.
Speaking of driving, I seem to be doing OK with the whole driving-on-the-left thing. It was really crazy in Auckland, where the city streets were five lanes wide, and I had to make turns to get onto the highway. The high-speed lane on the highway is on the right…opposite of everything we know to be the “right way!” Even the controls in the car work totally the opposite…like holding a mirror up to your car as you drive. Speeds are in kilometers and max speed in most places is 100 km per hour, or about 60 mph.
We had dinner at a local Millenium Resort which is an extremely family-friendly environment, so we assumed dinner would suck…but it actually wasn’t bad at all. Kelly had a seafood shishkebob and I has a surf and turf with beef and shrimp. Ava downed two hotdogs without hesitation.

Last night, the dinner at the French Cafe was…interesting. The food was very good and extremely creative. The winner of the evening for both Kelly and me was a chicken liver parfait that was out of this world. Some of the other dishes were inspired but not mindblowing in the taste department. And they had nothing to offer Ava, so she wound up getting an order of Waygu beef (that’s Kobe to you and me) that she didn’t eat. Instead, she passed out on us because she had refused to nap in the afternoon, and just slept quietly through our whole meal, with the exception of the one time she rolled off the cushion she was on and landed with a thud on the floor under the table…did not wake up! We picked her up, put her back on the cushion, and finished our meal. It was kind of a bizarre evening, a little disappointing in the food, and heavily influenced by our lack of sleep…still not having caught up with the jet lag. The one highlight of the evening was our server, Paula, who gave us great info on where to go on our trip. She even has a friend that works at the George Hotel in Christchurch, where we will be staying on New Year’s Eve.

>>>Al

We had Ava’s 4th birthday dinner last night with Angela and Richard, a couple we met a few years ago in Santorini, Greece. Back then we did the usual “hey, it was great to meet you…let’s stay in touch” e-mail swap, knowing full well that we’d probably never bump into each other again. But strange things do happen, and here we are in New Zealand after all.

Richard, Kelly, Ava, Angela and Al

Kelly, Ava and I have not fully adjusted to the new time zone. After all, we crossed the equator and the International Date Line to get here. It’s 18 hours earlier here than on the east coast of the US. But little by little, we’ll catch up and be fine, even with the colds we’re fighting, thanks to the aassistance of some fine New Zealand Pinot Noir, and their own brand of very tasty wheat vodka called 42 Below.

We spent the morning of our only full day in Auckland fighting Verizon over an international modem that is not working–what a surprise. But we did get out to see the Auckland fish market (the one where all the restaurants come for their catch of the day) and Kelly took tons of fish pictures for future artistic inspiration. We then went to see some live fish, as well as penguins, at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World and Antarctic Encounter. Sharks, fish of all kinds, sting rays, penguins, even a robotic orca that scared the crap out of Ava…it was all there and a fun experience. We had a quick bite in Parnell, a neighborhood in Auckland that has quite a few restaurants and art galleries. Not too impressed with any of that, but we did get a card reader which will allow us to download photos onto the web.

Tonight: dinner at the French Cafe, what many consider to be the best restaurant in Auckland and maybe New Zealand. Tomorrow: we hit the road and head south to Taupo, which is next to Lake Taupo, a giant lake formed when the crater of a volcano blew off many years ago. Our original plan was to go on a catamaran cruise of the lake, but we won’t make it in time. So we may take a detour instead and check out Rotorua, a town we were going to go to at first and then removed from our itinerary. It’s full of geisers, mud pits, and all kinds of wonderful smelly bubbling geologic features remeniscent of Iceland and Yellowstone National Park. We’ll try the morning cruise on Lake Taupo the next day.

>>>Al

Our trip, though long, was surpringly smooth and without incident. I’m very proud of Ava, who was a trooper thoughout the trip and really pushed on with Mom and Dad, despite a few points where we were really in need of sleep and had to deal with the monotony of airport lines. And I’m kinda proud of myself for being able to talk myself through several long periods of turbulence that would have had me running for the emergency exit on other flights. Kelly fought through the trip with a bad cold, and we’re hoping that now that we’re in warmer climates (it’s close to 80 and humid here, though cloudy), maybe the cold she’s got and the one I seem to be getting will go away quickly.

Once again, we’ve taken the idea of “light packing” and literally have thrown it out the window: three large suitcases along with two smaller ones for check-in (our now famous “wine suitcases” which will be filled with 2 cases of wine on the trip home) and five or six carry-ons, not including Ava’s stroller which gets checked at the gate. Gotta say the stroller is one of the smarter things we’ve brought–not for Ava–but because we can load it up with all of our carry-ons and not have to drag them through the airport!

They say that New Zealand is really tough when it comes to bringing in food, plants, or other foreign materials…and we had our own proof of that when we were picking up our suitcases at baggage claim. We spotted a woman with a dog that was sniffing all the luggage, and it was only a matter of time before he made a bee-line to my backpack! She asked me if I was bringing in any fresh fruit and I said no…then it dawned on me that I had 2 precious zip-locs filled with my home-made beef jerky! Damn that dog! He stuck his friggin’ nose right in there and wouldn’t leave. My jerky was confiscated. I was so bummed…I had planned on eating it during our flight…forgot all about it…and now it’s either trash or dog snacks.

We got out luggage, got picked up by the Apex car rental company van, and picked up our very stylish Toyota Previa family van for our 19 days of driving through the New Zealand countryside. It’ll be fine…nuthin’ fancy, but lots of visibility and tons of room for all the crap we’ve brought down here.

Our first attempt at driving on the left side (though I’ve done that many times before in the Caribbean, never with the steering wheel on the right!) was a success and we got the the Westin hotel on the waterfront in Auckland with no problems.

We’ve enjoyed a small meal via room service, including a little birthday cake they brought up for Ava’s 4th birthday which is today. And now it’s shower time and nap time before we go out to dinner tonight with out friends Angela and Robert, whom Kelly and I met a few years ago in Santorini Greece. There was one night in particular where we had enjoyed some amazing Greek food and many beverages, and then stuffed ourselves into our Smart Car rental for a road trip. Not smart, but we lived to tell the tale.

So we’re here. Look out, New Zealand!

It’s one thing to go away for a week to a Caribbean island and just hit the beach every day. It’s another to go half-way around the world for several weeks and explore a country you know nothing about. Four travel books, two maps, and countless websites later, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of researching where we will travel, eat, drink and sleep in New Zealand.
One of the most interesting things I’ve found in my quest for the lowdown on the land of the Kiwi was the fact that I had no idea just how many people my wife and/or I know that have been there: a former New Zealander promoter now living in New York…my CrabApple Whitewater rafting friends Jen and Frank, who went there on their honeymoon…my cousin’s Kiwi friends who now live in Abu Dahbi…and Angela and Richard, two wonderful people my wife and I met a couple of years ago in Santorini, Greece, who live in Auckland and will actually be having dinner with us our first night there!
Besides the perhaps obvious facts that I will be looking up at a totally different star-filled sky (a little CSN “Southern Cross” would be good right about now), the fact that my toilet should be flushing counter-clockwise (don’t worry…I will take video of that), and that this was where the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was filmed, what I didn’t know is that New Zealand was the very last country on earth that man set foot upon. The entire country is geologically active, as witnessed recently by the 7.2 earthquake that hit the city of Christchurch, where we will be New Year’s Eve. Miraculously, no one died in that earthquake, and the standards for earthquake-resistant buildings in New Zealand are a testament to that.
The country is all about adrenaline: whitewater rafting, which I will do on the Shotover River near Queenstown, is just the tip of the glacier (which we will also explore in Franz Joseph.) New Zealand is where bungy jumping originated. There are opportunities for spelunking, flying upriver in jetboats, scuba diving, snorkeling, skiing, helicopter and small plane rides, hurling down mountainsides inside one-man spheres (they call it Zorbing: www.zorb.com ) and the list goes on and on.
My excuse to skip some of the crazier adrenaline-pumping activities will be my 4-year-old daughter, Ava: after all, what kind of responsible parent would I be if I did this? But I know we will have fun. Besides, I think the sheer exhilaration of sipping one of the many fine New Zealand wines and enjoying a meal prepared by a talented chef is much closer to my idea of “living on the edge.”
Those who know me know that I love to travel–once I’m there. I’m not good with airplanes. And considering it’s 6 hours non-stop from Boston to L.A., then another 13 hours from L.A. to Auckland, I’ve got quite a challenge ahead of me. I did buy a fear-of-flying DVD set that has helped a little. But I also have a supply of prescription drugs, so I’m hoping for some help from Mr Alcohol, Mr Ambien and Mrs Valium! Wish me luck! (Actually, wish Kelly luck!)

>>>Al

In case you didn’t recognize the flag, we’re headed to New Zealand! Getting 3 weeks of vacation is not an easy task for Kelly or me, and so we found ourselves very fortunate to be able to take a trip like this around the Christmas holidays, when summer is approaching in New Zealand. Daytime temps look to be in the 70’s, while nighttime temps drop to the 60’s in the northern city of Auckland, and down to the upper 40’s in the southern city of Queenstown.

It’s about 19 hours in the air to get to New Zealand from Boston: 6 hours non-stop to L.A., then another 13 hours non-stop to Auckland. I was lucky to be able to upgrade to business class on our flights from Boston to L.A., and then L.A. back to Boston on American. But our Qantas flights from L.A. to Auckland and back are in coach. Hoping the plane won’t be too full and we’ll have some space to spread out.

Ava is coming along for the ride, of course, a seasoned traveler who will be adding New Zealand to her international list of countries that already include France (twice), Italy, Lithuania, Canada and the British Virgin Islands. We will be landing in Auckland on her 4th birthday, December 20th.

We will be driving north to south in New Zealand, from Auckland down to Queenstown. A direct drive would be a mere 975 miles (including the 3-hour ferry trip from the North Island to the South Island), but we will be taking many detours along the way, adding many more miles with our itinerary.

Here’s the planned trip (you can follow along with the map):

• Auckland 2 nights, including Ava’s birthday
• Lake Taupo 1 night
• Havelock/Napier/Hawkes Bay 3 nights, including Christmas
• Blenheim (Marlborough wine country) 4 nights
• Kaikoura 2 nights
• Christchurch 2 nights, including New Year’s
• Franz Josef 1 night
• Queenstown 5 nights

Driving New Zealand will be a fun challenge: they drive on the left side of the road, which is really only a problem in the big cities where it can get confusing…but they say the rural roads are winding, steep and slow. You need to give yourself lots of time to get from point A to point B. Hopefully, we’ve scheduled ourselves well and will be able to handle all that without too much of a hassle.

And, by the way, we will fly back to Auckland from Queenstown, a 90-minute flight that will start our very long journey home.

>>>Al