There and Back Again - Blenheim, South Island, New Zealand
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 27 Apr 2009 03:50
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41:30.7508 S 173:57.1836 E
On March 25th, we left Christchurch for the final
drive back to Blenheim. We stopped for lunch in the east coast town of
Kaikoura, which is where this picture was taken. Upon arrival at our motel
in Blenheim, we were once again greeted by Heather and Martin and shown to the
same room we had at the very start of our trip. That night we collapsed
from travel fatigue. I think Don and I were more affected than Mom and
Dad. We are more used to sailboat travel where you move more slowly and
bring your own house with you. All of this packing and unpacking and
sleeping in a different bed and driving fast backwards was foreign
to us. Land touring makes boat touring look easy. However, land
touring does have its advantages. Those being the lack of night watches,
sleeping more than three hours at a time on a bed that doesn't bounce and roll,
seeing a lot of really cool stuff in a really short period of time and staying
connected to the world. Although there is a lot to be said for being
disconnected from the world too - now and then, anyway. In the end,
we feel lucky to have experienced both modes of travel in New
Zealand.
Traveling by air, however, is a whole different
story and if you base your opinion on my parents' trip home from New Zealand,
you would say that air travel has no redeeming qualities
whatsoever.
Mom and Dad's plan was to go to the Blenheim
airport with us at about 9am on March 26th. Then fly to Auckland at 1pm,
catch the overnight flight to LA, from there fly to Detroit, and
finally to Syracuse, arriving at around 10 pm the next day even though
it would technically have been the same day due to that
stealthy international dateline. In real travel time, the total trip
was supposed to be about 30 hours. What really happened was
this. They flew from Blenheim to Auckland as planned. Once they
arrived in Auckland, they were told that their flight to LA had been
canceled. Cancelled more than two months ago,
actually. Hmmmm... Mom and Dad were switched to a New
Zealand Air flight, which got them into LA just late enough to miss their
connection to Detroit. For various reasons, they ended up stuck in
the LA airport for over 12 hours before they were finally able to
board a red-eye flight to New York City. From there, they got a
flight to Syracuse and arrived home the morning after they were
supposed to - for a total of almost 48 hours travel time. With
mostly no sleep. Nasty. Mom says their trouble getting home
didn't spoil the whole trip for them. I guess the human brain
is wired that way - to remember mostly the good things and forget
the bad stuff.
Traveling back to the boat in Whangarei on the
North Island was a breeze for us. We flew to Auckland and took the bus
from there to Whangarei. We were sitting on the boat admiring our floating
home by 5 pm.
And that about wraps up our South Island
land tour. An incredible experience we were lucky to share with my
parents. One we won't soon forget.
Anne
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