No Problem

Besides having the worst food of this part of the New Zealand trip the internet connection was poor also. At the hotel, my traveling compadre could never get her phone connected, and I was no help as my expertise with apple is having a nice crisp sweet one for a snack, and the New Zealand apples have not been a disappointment, but she never could log on.

The Post

Nothing left to do but check out and wander down to the local café, have a flat white with an extra shot and use their wi fi. The network needed a secret password but the waitress brought us each a printed slip of paper with the code on it. It worked.

Entering Ice Worm Cave

That completed we climbed into the car and using our dead reckoning skills we proceeded to attempt to get out of Raglan. A short detour thru a nice neighborhood and we spotted the main road only because a hitchhiker was thumbing on the corner.

Our rental with Japanese controls is large so we decided to give the young girl a ride. We figured she might know the way out. She didn’t. She was an interior designer from Argentina spoke just enough English to understand our just enough Spanish, but we had a nice time on the way back to Auckland, stopping for bano breaks, negotiating the road construction, and generally having a grand time until we got back to Auckland and my phone our navigation’s system would not connect to the network that it was loving being connected to just days ago.

Bear Tracks On The Black Sand Beach

It only took a couple of restarts but soon enough we had google back with us navigating the roundabout back to Scotties Car Rental.

They were nice enough giving us a ride back to the airport but I gave them a scolding on the survey they sent me. It’s just bad form to rent a car with the electronic controls in a language the driver, or navigator doesn’t understand, especially when it is the standard vehicle electronics that even the motor company uses on the new bikes.  Gee.

Once back at the international airport the Virgin Austrian counter wasn’t open yet so we looked around the terminal for some satisfactory airport food. What we found was okay, not as bad as Georges, and probably aboot as good as airport food gets

We got back down to the ticket counter shortly after it opened and walked the ropes to get into the queue Rod our agent was quite nice checking our passports and visas, and everything was going great until he told us we didn’t purchase a ticket that allowed for baggage, but we could purchase a ticket for our baggage for $133.00. That seemed like a lot but we must have our bags, so I told Rod to go ahead and charge me. Rod fumbled and swiped, inserted chip cards and fussed around for what seemed like forever, but finally managed to make the charge. I am suspicious that Rod might be supplementing his pension with overcharging tourists????

Boarding the Virgin 737-800 the most uncomfortable ride in the sky we passed our bags sitting in first class, and proceeded back to chattel, and unbeknownst to us also the screaming child section. The two-hour fright across the Tasman Sea  seemed longer than the ride to New Zealand,  and our ears were bleeding by the time we landed, but our baggage made it just fine.

Foggy Auckland From The Sky Tower