Day 25 Monday, September 20 -- Devenport, Auckland Harbor Sailing, and Back to LA

Synopsis

We got up early and packed up our belongings and cleaned out the van before heading to Devenort, which is just across the bay from downtown Auckland. We drove up Mount Victoria, which was really just a not-even-glorified hill, but the views were still quite impressive, and a 360 degree vista of Auckland and out to sea. We then headed back to downtown once again to take a sailboat trip around the harbor, which was a great time. We then rushed to the airport where we almost missed our flight back to LA (which probably wouldn’t have been so bad, afterall!). With a heavy heart, our trip came to an end, but we’ll always have a memories, and who knows, maybe we’ll be back someday…

Detailed Journal

Despite Lynette waking up at 6:30, we weren’t able to hit the road until 10 since we had to shower, pack all of our stuff and clean out the van. This was a fairly depressing experience. We headed over to Devonport, which is right across the harbor from downtown Auckland. We expected to find some good last minute shops, but this turned out not to be the case. It was a cute little town and probably popular among local tourists, but the only thing worthwhile for us was a small shop at the Devonport Wharf, and a hill (called Mt. Victoria) that had a great 360 degree view of downtown, the harbor, the rest of Auckland and out towards the ocean where several islands could be seen along with the Coromandel Peninsula in the distance.

We then drove back in to downtown to see if we could take a harbor cruise before our flight, again taking a bit of time in order to find a parking spot. We finally settled on the lot by the Wharf, which cost a ridiculous $20 for 2.5 hours. We went to the i-site and asked about the tall ship, which was not running at the time (no wonder they hadn’t answered our phone calls over the last few days). They had the tall ship at another harbor for the winter and wouldn’t be back until November. We briefly thought about waiting for its return. We settled on a lunch cruise with the Pride of Auckland, and booked the cruise. We had about 10 minutes to do some shopping before jumping aboard the Defiance, a fairly good-sized sailboat, with two other guests from the L.A. area. We took a ride around the America’s Cup Viaduct Harbor while we ate a box lunch. Once out of the viaduct, the two crew members pulled up the sails and we were on our way towards the harbor bridge. The wind was going pretty good and made the boat tip to a point just beyond comfort, but the crew assured us that this was normal. As we passed under the bridge, we saw a couple of bungee jumpers make their plunge (it was about the same height as the jump we had taken in Queenstown). We took a nice leisurely cruise, tacking into the wind until we reached a sugar refinery (well into the harbor) before turning back towards downtown. On the way back, they offered to let us take the wheel, so Jason took the opportunity. We had a nice conversation with the first mate, who had much more of a city-folk feel to her than the other people we had met on our journey. This, of course, made a lot of sense since she lived in the city.

They dropped the sails and we soon back at the dock. We thanked our captain and first mate and jumped off the boat and made a run for Queens Street because there were a few more souvenirs that we wanted to pick up. We only had 20 minutes before our parking spot expired, and we really should have left for the airport immediately. This made the shopping experience more of a mad dash since the shopping area was several blocks away. We found what we wanted and ran back to the van and took off towards the airport. It was just about 3:00 at this point, and our flight left at 6:00. We had really wanted to be at the airport by then, but it wouldn’t be a Jason and Lynette vacation without a mad dash to the airport. We stopped at a petrol station on our way to the airport, filled up on diesel and natural gas, and called Maui rentals to get directions to where we needed to return the van (which was a good thing that we did because it would not have been even remotely obvious from the airport). Unfortunately, they gave us bum directions, and we ended up getting lost in a neighborhood and had to ask someone at a petrol station for directions. He set us straight, but the diversion took about 20 minutes that we really didn’t have.

We finally made it to Maui at about 3:50 and found a bunch of people in the waiting area. We checked in and emptied the van as quickly as we could then went into the office to wait. We met a very agitated man from Australia who had a plane to catch at the same time as ours (which didn’t make us feel any better). We waited for what seemed like forever until they finally checked out our van and called us over to close out our paperwork. The good news was that we got finished in time to catch the next bus heading towards the terminal. The other good news was that in the rush, they didn’t notice a ding on the door and didn’t check to make sure we had the snow chains.

So, we successfully returned the van, 6890 km away from where we had picked it up (as the van drives, not as the crow flies). We caught the 4:30 bus to the terminal and anxiously made small talk with the irritated Australian. When we got to the terminal, Lynette took a couple of bags over to check-in while Jason unloaded the rest of our bags from the bus. We went through a security check of our bags and went over to check in. Once there, the man behind the counter informed us that one of our checked bags was 1 kg overweight. Lynette moved a guide book from the one overweight bag to one of the other bags. At that point, he requested that Lynette put her one carry-on bag on the scale. He informed us that it was 14 kg over weight. So, we put some items into one of our checked bags, at which point the security scanner came over and made a comment about how they had just inspected the checked bags, so we really couldn’t be putting more stuff in them. After getting all of the non-breakables out of our carry-on, we weighed the bag again to find out that we were 3 kg overweight. The guy behind the counter insisted that we fix the problem, even though our total weight was nowhere near the limit. This was highly annoying, and Lynette finally just grabbed a plastic shopping bag out of her carry-on and declared it her second carry-on. This apparently satisfied the man behind the counter. The ironic part was that as soon as we were out of sight, we had every intention of putting that plastic bag back into our carry-on. Oh well.

The guy told us that they were already boarding, so we rushed to another line at which we needed to pay a departure fee (which, for some reason, couldn’t be included in the price of the ticket). Then we were off to yet another line at security where they checked our passports and carry-on luggage. We rushed down the concourse and on our way we encountered one of the security guards that had inspected our checked luggage. She said that there was no hurry because they hadn’t started boarding yet. This heightened our annoyance at the man at check-in, who had said that the plan was already boarding. So, it turns out that we made it to the gate as they just beginning to board families, first class, and people with special needs. We had about a minute to recover before it was our turn to board the plane.

Once on the plane, we noticed that there were lots of vacant seats, so we asked the flight attendant if we could spread out, which he said we could. So, we took a section of four seats to ourselves and tried to settle in and relax for the long flight home. The good news about the frantic rush to the airport, it took our minds off the fact that our vacation was over. As we flew out of Auckland and watched New Zealand pass out of sight behind us, we were filled with a melancholy sense. Vacations never seem to be long enough, but I guess we’re lucky to have had the opportunity for such an incredible experience. The New Zealand scenery was absolutely phenomenal, and on top of that we were able to spend all of our time together, sharing events that have now become memories that will last a lifetime. It may not be soon, but perhaps we’ll have another opportunity to visit “Middle Earth”… until then, we’ll be looking forward to our next adventure…

Pictures

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