Learned to surf today! You’d think by now we’d know how to use the internet (dad joke). Anyhoo the sea was really rough with huge waves and we were both battered and bruised to within an inch of our lives but thoroughly enjoyed it. We even managed to stand on the board a few times. Credit to the surf teacher dude. We enjoyed it so much we’re going to make sure we can surf again before we leave Oz. ...
Arrived in Noosa after a pleasant Greyhound trip to find the sun ablazing. Yahoo! As everyone else moved off into their designated pickup mini-buses, we being the usual turn up and see, decided on the YHA for its closest proximity to the bus stop (we now seem to be carting around a total of 6 bags – 2 backpacks, 2 rucksacks, 1 bag of souvenirs and a coolbag) and turns out the lovely Noosa Heads beach. ...
Last night we got back to Acacia to find a breakfast basket on our bed. I forgot to mention we do actually have a fridge, kettle (an actual electric jug*!) & toaster in the room – bonus. Anyway the brekkie basket consisted of 2 bowls, 2 plates, a mini-pack of weet-bix for moi, a mini-pack of cornflakes for matt, 2 half pint cartons of milk (like what you get in playschool milk), two tetrapaks of OJ and portions of butter, jam & vegemite. Ah the famous Aussie equivalent of Marmite to try. Plus a teatowel (are we meant to wash it up afterwards?) We had to ask for bread. So imagine us attempting to sit comfortably on a double bed trying not to fall down the gap between it and the wall because it keeps shooting across the room on its castor wheels, balancing a bowl of cereal & plate of toast on our laps watching the Aussie equivalent to GMTV and realising morning TV has the same inept unfunny presenters all over the globe. ...
We made it. 2:30 alarm. 3:15 left apartment. 3:35 on bus to airport. 4:10 check in. 4:40 security check – Matt gets searched twice – he’s got the hoody and the beanie but of course it is random. 6:00 (NZ time) on the easyjet style plane for an uneasy flight. You would have thought by now with a helicopter ride up glaciers, bungy jumping over a canyon and a light aircraft flight 15000m up to fall out into the sky, a 4 hour flight would be a doddle. Nope. i didn’t like the fact we were one of the first flights to go with Qantas since the ash cloud cleared. And we had a couple of moments of turbulence. that wouldn’t have been so bad hadn’t the co-pilot say in a hurried voice “please can all passengers return to their seats immediately and put their seatbelts on” followed by two air stewardesses rushing through to the front of the plane. It’s not something I’m comfortable with. ...
We moved to Waldorf Tetra apartments. It was sad to leave Hotel deBrett. And having 4 hours to kill between check-out and check-in consisted of sitting by the harbour and window-shopping. We’d quite like to get to Australia now please. Proof we saw a bit of Auckland. The Tetra apartment is in a not so wonderful location but it’s still pretty close to the centre and we have been upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment. It’s enormous. It’s got an open plan kitchen/diner/lounge area and a very vertigo-challenging balcony. We could live here. ...
We’d quite like to leave tomorrow now. But flights are cancelled again all day. So we’re now on a Monday flight. This is a slight pain as it means 4 nights in Auckland. Qantas will only pay for 3 so we have to move somewhere cheaper. We don’t want to leave Hotel deBrett! Being in limbo waiting to see if our flights are on or off has meant being completely lazy in Auckland and just playing the waiting game. So no interesting photos and nothing else to report today.
Another day in Auckland. Another cancelled flight tomorrow. Booked in for Sunday evening. Qantas will pay for 3 nights accommodation so Sunday will be good for us 😀 There is nothing to complain about at Hotel deBrett. The breakfast was divine. Fresh fruit, proper coffee and delicious pastries. Pre-dinner drinks in the Drawing Room were proper drinks. I sound so common but most “free” drinks in hotels are usually the cheapest most generic thing they can think of. The Drawing Room itself, I wish we could have picked up and taken home with us. Retro cool. To get an idea here is the chair in the foyer that I wanted to smuggle into my backpack. ...
Bye bye New Zealand in a campervan… …hello New Zealand in a beautiful hotel. So we’re meant to be in Sydney now but instead we’re in a gorgeous hotel in the centre of Auckland. Qantas told us we have a budget of $250 AUD to spend on accommodation per day so we’ve booked ourselves into the best hotel in central Auckland. Well why not?! After taking a couple of wrong turns and ending up on the motorway and then back where we started we finally made it to Wilderness where they were happy with everything we’d paid for for the van’s bump previously and we had no other costs to pay. Plus instead of driving us 5 mins down the road to the airport as we’d originally planned, Steve drove us back into the centre of Auckland and dropped us off right outside the hotel. Couldn’t have asked for better customer service. UK companies could definitely learn from the rest of the world. ...
Steve from Wilderness turned up at 8:30am after driving from Auckland with our new van. It is so clean! hello new van (parked outside the motel room) The breakdown and motel in its way had been a blessing in disguise. We’d used the vast space in the room to organise ourselves and managed to get most of our gear packed up so we’ll be ready for our flight. I doubt we’d have been this organised if we’d still been travelling around. ...
Not a breakdown of the mental kind (just yet) but the mechanical kind. The clutch to be accurate. We had been indecisive yesterday about whether to drive the 110k to Cape Reinga and back. Did we have time to fit it in? It would be a 4 hour round trip up and back down the peninsula and we wanted to get to Auckland on Wednesday with time to spare to see the city. ...