Early in 2008 we saw some advertisements from QANTAS that offered a round-trip airfare from Los Angeles to Sydney for $1099, with up to three flights within Australia included in the deal. This sounded very attractive to us. On closer scrutiny, we found date (Not July) and area (southeast Australia only) restrictions, but the deal still included places like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, and even the large island of Tasmania to the south of the mainland, so it still seemed pretty good.

But then we thought about our schedule, which would allow for two weeks or maybe a little more, and felt we would be spending too much of it in airports if we went with this deal. Also, we’d visited and enjoyed New Zealand in 2004 and thought it would be fun to drop in on the Kiwis again if we were going to be in that part of the world. So Nella got on the Internet and started poking around for alternatives. What she eventually found was a deal from American Airlines that would take us from L.A. to Auckland, from Auckland to Brisbane, and from Sydney back to L.A. for roughly the same price as the QANTAS deal. There was an obvious missing link here, as Brisbane and Sydney are separated by 400 miles or so, but Nella found Virgin Blue, a domestic airline that would bridge this gap fairly cheaply. One other thing we discovered was that the international flights were actually operated by QANTAS, meaning we wouldn’t be dealing with American at all, except to make and pay for the reservations. This was an important thing to take note of, as it completely changed the ticket counter (and even the terminal building) which we would be using for check-in. We polled our kids on the trip and got a thumbs-up from Connie but a thumbs-down from Philip (employment commitments), so we decided to go for it with a party of three.

Having made this commitment, we did some research and pieced together a tentative itinerary of things to see and do. Armed with this information, Nella began searching the Internet for places to stay, a process that was to take several weeks (finding the right combination of location, quality of accommodations and cost can be a painstaking operation). Accumulated credit card points were helpful, being good for discounts at certain hotels. Car rental would also be required, with cars to be picked up in Auckland and in Brisbane (public transport/foot power to be used in Sydney), and this was also set up on-line.

In the meantime, I looked into some of the technicalities. Everyone's passports were checked to make sure they were up to date. Australia was found to require visas for entry, which could be purchased in advance on-line. New Zealand at one time charged a departure fee (arrival in the country was free, but it cost you money to leave), but this had apparently been discontinued. Both countries’ languages were examined and found to be a form of English, so no crash courses were required. Each country has its own currency, each called dollars and cents - at the start of the trip, the New Zealand dollar was worth about 76 American cents, and the Australian dollar about 97 cents. We decided not to procure any of this currency in the U.S., as this gets you a horrible exchange rate, but instead decided to find ATMs as soon as we landed at the Auckland and Brisbane airports (airport exchange rates aren't always the best, but they're much better than what you'll find in the U.S.). Since baggage allowances can vary from airline to airline, we consulted the QANTAS and Virgin Blue web sites, and found the Virgin Blue allowance to be much lower than the international QANTAS allowance. We resolved to pack in anticipation of the Virgin Blue allowance, to avoid the scourge of excess baggage fees.

As the trip grew closer, a few final details were attended to. Being security-minded, credit and ATM card companies will often stop honoring their cards if they find them to be used somewhere radically removed from the home address of their owners. As we were planning on performing virtually all of our transactions with aid of plastic, we made sure to inform these companies of our itinerary. We also made sure we had international phone numbers for these companies, in case of loss or in case someone disabled the cards mistakenly. One other thing we checked while talking to these companies was the size of their "conversion fees". A conversion fee is what a company charges for converting foreign-currency transactions to dollars. Most credit card companies charge 2-3% for each transaction, which can add up.

Finally, cameras were checked and found to be functional (lucky you). Packing checklists which had been compiled under non-last-minute circumstances were used carefully when assembling our luggage. Transportation to and from LAX was arranged with Philip, and on a warm August afternoon we were duly delivered to the Tom Bradley terminal.



So why New Zealand? If you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings movies, you might have an inkling. Those expecting to find hobbits will be disappointed, but the scenery is unique, diverse and often spectacular. Maori culture infuses the place, and leads among other things to many place names that are difficult to pronounce. The culture itself is fascinating, and is being kept alive by many Maori practitioners. Driving around the countryside, one is struck by how green everything is, at least in the winter (which August is in the middle of), and various forms of agriculture (especially sheep farming) are seen everywhere. And everyone speaks English.

A little background: New Zealand consists primarily of two large islands, unimaginatively named North Island and South Island. It is considered to be part of Polynesia, and was first populated several centuries ago by Polynesians who canoed there from Polynesian parts unknown and are called Maoris. The first European to visit New Zealand was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who arrived at the west coast in 1642. After Maoris began killing his crewmen, he elected to depart. New Zealand was not revisited by Europeans for more than a century. During this time, New Zealand was thought to be a west-facing coastline of a great southern continent which was felt to extend as far east as the tip of South America. This idea was dispelled by the next European explorer to reach the area, James Cook, who arrived in his ship Endeavour and mapped the islands in some detail in 1769. Many of the non-Maori place names in New Zealand were established by Cook. Cook’s encounters with the Maori people were for the most part more successful than Tasman’s, and shortly after Cook’s voyage, Europeans began trading with the Maoris. Missionaries and others began settling New Zealand in the early 19th Century; there were a number of disputes with the indigenous population (including Land Wars in the 1860’s and 1870’s) which were settled, but not always to the complete satisfaction of the Maoris, many of whom remain less than delighted to the present day. New Zealand is now a constitutional monarchy (Elizabeth II is the Queen) with a parliamentary democracy, and its capital is Wellington (named for the British victor at Waterloo), located at the south end of North Island. Its largest city is Auckland (in the northern part of North Island, named for the Earl of Auckland), which claims about 1.3 million of New Zealand’s 4.3 million residents. Despite the country’s smallish population, New Zealand fields a world class rugby team, the All Blacks (named for their uniforms), and many New Zealanders (including especially the Maoris) are fanatical about the game.

Another interesting fact about New Zealand is that it’s very far from Los Angeles - our flight over that distance lasted 13 hours. As the flight actually travels a little farther south than it does west, in addition to jet lag, a traveler has to deal with "climate lag". The middle of summer in Los Angeles is the middle of winter in New Zealand, and our arrival in Auckland at 5 AM the morning of August 5 was dark, rainy and cold (probably the mid-40’s F.). We got through Immigration, baggage claim and Customs without incident (apparently kia ora means "welcome" in Maori), and were able to find an ATM and our rental car (a Hyundai from Avis) without difficulty.

It quickly becomes obvious to even the most unobservant driver that in New Zealand, steering wheels are on the right of the car and driving is on the left of the road, but just to make sure, Avis affixes "Keep Left" stickers to their speedometers. It actually isn’t that difficult to get it mostly right, but it adds a certain amount of tension to the driving experience if one isn’t used to it. The trickiest things are the turns, when you have to remember to turn into the correct lane (i.e. the one on the left). It also takes some practice to stop getting into the car on the left side and being surprised by the absence of a steering wheel. Distances and speed limits are metric, but this isn’t difficult to get used to either – you just have to remember that kilometers elapse somewhat faster than miles (about 1.6 times faster), and that if the round speed limit signs say 80 but the number on your speedometer says 100, you’re going too fast. With all this in mind, we left the airport and headed in the general direction of our first destination, the town of Rotorua.

Rotorua is a center of Maori culture and thermal activity, and they also have this big lake. More on this later. En route we stopped for breakfast at a rest stop and found a place across from the gas station called the Autobahn Café. The time was shortly before 7 AM, but it was still dark outside (it being winter), and the place was mostly empty. The menu was surprisingly varied, with such items as mussel fritters, chicken satay, venison and ostrich burgers, Wiener schnitzel and Cajun spiced chicken thighs. But the item that surprised and delighted Connie was canned spaghetti on white toast, which forthwith became her breakfast.


Rotorua is the better part of 200 miles to the southeast of Auckland, and on the way we had ample views of the aforementioned sheep and startlingly green landscape. And we found ourselves making good time, such good time that it would have been much too early to check into our hotel on arrival. On the other hand, it seemed that we might be able to make the daily 10:15 eruption of the Lady Knox Geyser at Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland to the south of Rotorua. I depressed the accelerator pedal a little bit harder.