For the first time since 2012, we’re back gliding the skies on another adventure. This time, we are a group of four with Damian joining us on his first ever holiday.
Our trip takes us eastwards to our Tasman neighbour- New Zealand.
Pre-flight
We drove up to Sydney yesterday, whilst at the same time some nutjob decided to take hostages in Martin Place. Although the media went nuts, the CBD was not in “lockdown” and the airspace above the CBD was not a no-fly zone. We had no trouble driving in from the south west, stopping for a few hours in Leichhardt to see my grandparents (and great-grandparents). They were in fine spirits and had been waiting to see the boys for some time. They were naturally enthralled watching Damian walking – which he has only been able to do for about three or four weeks.
Jake explores a castle
Our Sydney overnight accommodation was at the Wyndham in Sydney, which is very conveniently located on the corner of Goulburn street and Wentworth avenue. We had reserved a two bedder on the 11th floor – with decent views. In fact, we could actually see our former work place (Ticketek – also on Goulburn street in the Masonic building) from the balcony!
Panorama from our balcony
We ordered Chinese food delivery from a restaurant called “The Mahjong Room” back up near our previous residence on Crown street. It was a very mainland style meal with lotus root, pork belly and kung pao prawns (done in the mainland style with heaps of chillis). A little on the pricey side, but well worth it for some authentic mainland cooking. We had an “early” night, although the boys were up and down through the night. At 5:30am the alarm sounded….
Departing Sydney
Despite the unusually early wake up, we had the boys fed and ready, and all bags packed in short time. We were actually very well prepared, and as a result we were on our way to the International airport well by 6:30am. I dropped the boys and Toni off at the Departure gates, then peeled off to park at the Domestic terminal ($129 to park for the duration we’re away). However, I forgot you can’t turn right beyond the Domestic airport turnoff, and ended up having to loop both airports. By the time I caught the free shuttle bus to the Domestic terminal and the train to the International airport I was cutting it extremely fine.
We battled our way through customs, there were crowds of people, and I filled out our departure cards whilst navigating through the cattle grid and keeping kids and carry on luggage all moving forward. As we had Damian in a stroller, we were herded to a special security line, where people in wheelchairs got to jump the queue (but 14 month olds in strollers don’t?) and the people in front of us were carrying a vacation’s worth of crap in their carry on. Both kids were crying, and it was taking an eon for the numpties in front of us to get their belongings in order.
By the time we cleared security we were unceremoniously bombarded with the “in your face” duty free which tackily dominates the gateway to departure gates. At this point, I began cursing this horrendous excuse for an airport. At this point we were a good 10 minutes on foot from the gate, which is something Sydney Airport doesn’t articulate very well at any point. We finally made it to the gate and the flight miraculously hadn’t finished boarding. We weren’t the last on, but we weren’t far from it.
Onboard and ready to go!
The flight from Sydney to Rotorua is a fairly brisk three and a half hours, but really it’s three hours after takeoff – it depends how long you spend taxiing to oblivion courtesy of Sydney’s crazy/stupid runway congestion. The boys did incredibly well on the flight, very rarely getting upset or making loud noise. We were right down the back of the plane, located with other families, this proved a good arrangement as we weren’t disturbed by other families’ kids as we were preoccupied with our own!
Damian gets some Zzzz / Our first view of New Zealand
Air New Zealand charges $10 per person, per flight to allow customers to check in online (or in advance) and to select seats they’ve already paid for. This is a disgusting practice which I’d like to see abolished. It would cost us $240 to select our seats for the total trip – which is what we spent on groceries for the first week! Anyhow, that aside – we had a decent flight and Damian even had an hour and a half sleep, although it did also result in my arm going dead for a wee bit.
Landing in New Zealand
We landed promptly in New Zealand at Rotorua airport at about 1:55pm local time, and we were able to de-board and access the terminal without an drama. We picked up the hire car and made our way towards the exit. I had to grab the laptop, then I realised that the resort was outside the “immediate” vicinity of Rotorua proper. I gingerly enabled data and did a quick map search; the resort was north, not west! So we made a quick course correction and found our way.
Rotorua airport / the view from the terminal
We checked into the resort and dumped our bags in the room. We did some kiddie maintenance (nappies/clothing) and had a quick change ourselves before jumping back in the car and returning south/south-west to Rotorua town and found our way to the central shops. Rotorua does indeed smell strongly of sulphur – it’s hard to ignore a strong odour of “bad eggs”, but it’s not constant and therefore imminently survivable. The city centre is a bit like an Australian regional centre with lots of low rise buildings, and streets of shops lining the main street. I didn’t get any photos, but will remedy that tomorrow.
We’re a little bit away from town / A weeks’ groceries
Groceries were purchased at the New Zealand version of Woolworths, and we found some pleasing NZ food varieties including butter, milk, juice and bacon – oh, so good. Toni bought some clothes from a store in the centre, but one of the dye tags was still attached, so I guess we’re going back tomorrow. I also picked up a 3G USB dongle pre-paid with 2GB of data, which solves our Internet connectivity for now. We left at about 5:30pm and headed back to the resort.
Our accommodation / view from the main bedroom
It’s a nice resort, and there’s plenty of space. The resort will be our base of operation for the next few days. The resort is a small marina, and each townhouse fronts the water. There’s a common-use BBQ in our “backyard”, and waterways around the place. It’s very picturesque.
View of the waterway
Here are some assorted photos from my quick trek around the resort prior to dinner.
Well, it’s fast approaching 10:30pm (local) time, so I’d best be off to bed.
Check back tomorrow to see what we got up to on Day 2!