The Beginning

Hard to believe, but it’s actually happening.. After a bunch of research (mostly thanks to Michelle) we have planned out our trip…for the most part.

I’ve reserved a handful of things, since it would be ‘unpleasant’ if we got all the way to NZ, to find we couldn’t do what we wanted to because it was sold out, etc.. So I booked the Hotels in Auckland for the first week, a Car in Auckland, Black Water Rafting, Routeburn track huts, a Camper in South Island for the last 2 weeks, Fox Glacier HeliHike, Kaikoura Whale Watch, and a hotel in Auckland for the way back. Michelle took care of the flight plans, but since we were going stand by, we had to have some backups.. So I also booked a hotel in Christchurch, as well as one in Sydney incase we missed certain flights.. We never ended up needing the backups, since we made all our flights.. So I cancelled them as we went… (They were all booked on points thanks to my work travels.. So with Michelle’s deals, and my deals, the main expense was the camper for 2 weeks, which served as both transportation, and our place to sleep).

We heard from a few people that it’s best to go to NZ in the fall (spring in Toronto), start in the south and you get crazy good deals to bring the camper back up north (the rental places typically have to hire people to do this for them after the high season). But, we went in mid February, and most of the off-season deals start in March or later.

February 14th 2009, we make our way to the airport, with the help of my bro. Valentines marks the beginning of our Honeymoon, and a lot of flying.

We got on every flight we were hoping to.. We had executive class from Toronto to Vancouver (in the bed seats!),  but then had to move to the back for Vancouver to Sydney. They did give us the ‘bulk head’ seats, so we had no one in front of us, lots of leg room, and the only 2 seat row (the rows behind us had 3 seats per row). This photo was taken soon after leaving Vancouver.. I think it’s Victoria island down below the wing..

The time changes were weird… gaining 3 hours to Vancouver.. then gaining some hours over the ocean…until we crossed the international date line, when we lost a day…all in, we were +17 hours compared to home.

In Sydney, we managed to grab some fresh air (As opposed to recycled air) for a bit, sitting outside the Sydney airport waiting to get seats on our connection.. Caught a glimpse of the Opera house when we were landing too..

We actually got on an earlier flight then expected from Sydney to Auckland, though we had middle seats – but it was the shortest leg, at about 2.5 hours. When all the flying was done, we had logged 22 hours of air time!

We picked up the rental car (a nice tiny car, called a Getz) and headed for the hotel (Hyatt) to check in before dinner. We walked around downtown Auckland for a bit looking for a bite, and ended up having dinner on the pier.

Then we hit the sack for the start of the adventure!!