Arrival
Having had such a full on schedule in Sri Lanka, I knew that
the next phase of the trip would be less eventful and consequently that would
mean less to report, to be honest I was doing so much I almost felt obliged to
detail nearly everything which was becoming a bit of an unnecessary
commitment for me and I feared may be becoming a little tiresome for some of
you chaps. So with a plan to reduce my output, I packed up my gear and headed
off south.
The travel was pretty straight forward, a 4 hour flight to
Singapore, 7 ½ hours to Brisbane and then 3 hours to Auckland, with the ever
impressive Emirates airlines. The times of flights meant that I had to
overnight in Singapore and, although I was only there for 18 hours and
obviously saw very little of it, I was impressed with how open and spacious it
was, wide, tree lined roads all spotlessly clean and a great climate!! I
look forward to my return here to meet up with my mate Nick in June.
I had no idea of what to expect from Brisbane and it was not a place that had ever figured in my plans, but as I had a very early morning
arrival, and an afternoon departure, I had arranged to stay an extra night so
as to give me a chance for a quick look around, firstly because this was my
first visit to Australia and also, as my plans at present are to spend most of
my time in the south of the country when I return, I would not get the chance
to see it otherwise
I was advised by the staff at the hotel that the most popular
destination in town was South Bank so I jumped on the local bus and set off. As
the name suggests it is the area on the south side of the river, or creek, a
huge mud coloured waterway busy with ferries and boats. On the opposite side of
the creek is the main commercial centre with the typical inner city skyline of
high rise office space whereas the southside is home to theatres and cultural
centres, fronted by a lovely park area with gardens, walkways, cycle tracks, a
small man made beach and swimming pool area, plant covered shady arcades and
plenty of bars/cafes and restaurants.
I have never seen so
much lycra in my life! It felt like all of Brisbane was either jogging or
cycling, or had just jogged or cycled, and was now enjoying a compulsory salad
or fruit juice. I found myself tempted to break into a power walk just in an
attempt to conform but fortunately, whilst passing the 23rd place to
get a zero calorie refreshment, a Maori visitor, the size of a small block of
flats, asked me if I had a light and I noticed, almost inconspicuous in his
enormous paw, a cold bottle of Corona beer. Result!!
Two and a half hours later I wandered across the river
bridge into town to find a couple of civic buildings, a few quirky and historic
sites and a shopping centre and could have been in any UK or European city
centre, not all the shops have the same names but the lay out and atmosphere is
identical.
From very limited exposure, I liked Brisbane, but there
again when the sky is blue, the temperature is nearly 30 degrees and the beer is cold how could you
not!
So the next morning
back to the airport for the final leg.
New Zealand is a country I have always
wanted to visit - the land of the long white cloud, the world’s best rugby and
super wine. Also, geographically, it is as far away from home as I get and,
although not time wise, it is the half
way point of what was the main aim of all of this for me, the circumnavigation
of the planet . I have deliberately allowed plenty of time here to see as much
as I can of both islands, so I was pretty excited landing in Auckland.
There then followed a lot of faffing about at the airport,
due to poorly staffed immigration desks and having to be interviewed by the
biological warfare department, as I had been on a safari in the last 30 days –
I actually thought that my sitting on animal exploits had caught up with me – I
got into the concourse to encounter similar delays trying to get cash and a
phonecard and I gave up trying to talk to anyone about car hire. It appeared that everyone
from my flight, and every other flight, wanted a campervan and so I decided I
would research car hire from the hotel which took a further hour to get to as
the bus didn’t turn up on time ....... ho hum.
The reality of rejoining the 21st century pricing
structure clicks in quickly when beer becomes £4 a glass, but a hotel bar with
non stop Rugby Channel coverage and an entertaining bar man made up for it but ....
everything stops at about 9.30!! Anyone who knows me will now that I am quite
nocturnal and even though I had only slept about 12 hours in 3 days , partly
because of the time difference between countries, I was still quite
disappointed to be on my way to my room before 10pm
The next morning into town. I had been warned that Auckland
was a place to get out of and when I had asked a fellow traveller at a coffee
bar what was the best thing to do in Auckland on short visit, she advised me go
to Wellington!!
After 6 hours there, from what I saw, I think she was
probably right. It’s a bit like a small Southampton with a lot of hills. The
harbour is ok, made much more exciting due to the presence of a thumping great
cruise ship, a couple of nice parks and a tower, which having been to Dubai
begged the question, ‘You call that a tower?’
My priority however shifted to getting in front of a tv at
3.25 the following morning to watch the Wales match v Scotland. The channel
EPSN was covering the game but no hotel bar, club or restaurant within 5 miles
of my hotel subscribed to it and in any case the prospect of anyone being awake
after about 11.30 was not good. The hotel internet coverage was priced on
download and they advised me it was going to cost about £50!! So I got a couple
of bottles of beer on room service, ate the contents of my room fridge, listened
to my i pod whilst doing sudoko counting down the hours in anticipation of the
radio coverage on Talk Sport.
Imagine my delight
when at 3.30am they announced the live coverage of West Brom v Swansea !!!!!!!...not
even a mention of the rugby in this rugby fanatical country, the only other
options on the radio was some vacuous twerp playing 90’s music or a discussion
on the introduction of the dung beetle into New Zealand ...... bugger!! I ve since read about the game and despite
the win, the dung beetle may well have proven a better option
So, time to get out of Auckland, I got my car (more to follow
about this!!), got my map, and I m heading North .....
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