March 8 - 9
Adelaide to Wellington
March 8
Adelaide to Wellington
A day for travelling and, with luck, no excitements. I checked out, expecting to pay for a phone call but they didn't want any money, and awaited the arrival of a taxi. This arrived and took me to the airport through heavy morning traffic. Coming into town would have taken twice as long.
I was dropped at ground level and it took a little effort to work out that I needed a lift to the second floor. Once I had managed this, I found the Air New Zealand desk and gave them my bag. Security didn't spot my new hip so I was home and hosed without any problems. As the terminal serviced both domestic and international flights, I didn't yet need my passport.
I found a café offering reasonable looking, not too large, uncooked sandwiches and also a long black. This wasn't too bad. I consumed them on a bench, overlooking the International area and towards the planes. The only problem was that I couldn't locate any wi fi. Even Heathrow has that!
I moved further round the terminal - it is very large but without many people - found the wi fi and found another coffee.
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We boarded rapidly and took off a few minutes early. Across the aisle was a large Labrador guide dog. On the way to Melbourne, ten days earlier, there had been another guide dog, a smaller one. The Labrador managed to fit on the floor, perfectly behaved throughout.
We landed at Auckland a few minutes early and I walked in pleasantly cool weather to the domestic terminal, where I found a sandwich. Everything happened roughly on schedule, we arrived safely in Wellington and a taxi took me to Jane & Robert's without delay.
March 9
Wellington
A very busy morning glued to the phone and the computer trying to organise the next couple of weeks of my stay.
This light but complex work was interrupted by the harder task of hanging out my washing and drying the dishes. Finally, at about noon, I was able to go out to play.A bus dropped me in the city centre, where I wandered along Cuba Street, home to interesting buildings and strange people. I managed a little shopping - two small notebooks - and took the opportunity to visit the rental car company to check that they were expecting me to demand a car from them in a week's time. They were. |
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Lunch was at Café l'Affare, one of Wellington's most famous coffee roasters, which lives in an old industrial building. The sandwich was large and the coffee, not surprisingly, strong. The best since Darwin.
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I crossed the road to the best deli and wholesale food outlet in town, where I purchased some nice things as presents - cheese, olive oil, chocolate etc - and caught a bus back to Jane & Robert's.
In the late afternoon, Robert & I walked the 25 minutes to Regional Wines for the annual launch of one of the country's premier ranges of wine. I met a couple of old friends and we sat down to taste. As usual, the wine was excellent and the top wine, Te Mata Coleraine, was well out of my price range. The others were more affordable & I may buy some back in the UK.
At the end of the evening, we caught the bus back home.