New Zealand and Fiji
Nov 3-12, 2023
Nov 3 AC505 YYZ-ORD, NZ27 ORD-AKL, Nov 7 QF140 AKL-SYD, QF101 SYD-NAN, Nov 9 NZ953 NAN-AKL Nov 12 NZ24 AKL-YVR, AC118 YVR-YYZ
This was the continuation of our journey from Venice to New Zealand, and it was a great time for a visit. As we’d been to New Zealand a number of times, it was also an opportunity for us to find some new places to see. Also, in search of another new country to visit (#103), it was an excellent opportunity to tag on a trip to Fiji, which is relatively nearby.
The trip started in Toronto, with a connection to Air New Zealand in Chicago. This gave another opportunity to visit the United Polaris lounge, and sample some more Prisoner wine, before transferring to the International Terminal and our long flight.
Nov 5
Two calendar days later, we arrive in Auckland, and cautiously declared our hiking boots on the biosecurity form. Unfortunately, we landed at a very busy time, and as NZ had become more popular since our last visit, we ended up waiting 1.5 hours in a line to get processed and cleared. We grabbed an Uber into the city to the Park Hyatt, recently opened in a redeveloped port area of downtown. Even with the delay, I had just enough time to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the headquarters of Les Mills and take a class with some of the instructors from the virtual classes I started during the lockdown.
With a very full afternoon of walking, we made our way back to the hotel and found a nice takeaway place to have a quick meal in the room, before crashing for the night.
Nov 6
With another full day in Auckland, in addition to exploring the area around the hotel, we took a ferry across the habour to Devonport for a nice hike to a crater-top view of Auckland. We then decided to test public transit and hike up One Tree Hill. We were sure to get back in time so that I could do a Bodypump Class at Les Mills with the program director.
After my second Les Mills class, we had dinner at a very cool restaurant in the Auckland Wharf.
Nov 7
Our original flight to Nadu, Fiji, was supposed to be a short non-stop flight from Auckland. Unfortunately, Air New Zealand reduced the service, cancelling our flight, and the only option was a connecting flight through Sydney more than doubling the journey. Our originally relatively comfortable connection was shortened waiting for a free gate and a long security line in Sydney. With an additional last-minute gate change, we ended up running across the airport making it to our plane, just in time to depart. Glad to have finally arrived safely, we picked up the rental car and headed for our resort with a brief tourist stop. Although Fiji is a pretty small island, I hadn’t fully appreciated the long drive time from Nadi to the resort, so we had a pretty short first day.
After unwinding from the journey and enjoying the happy hour welcome reception, we had a lovely beach-side dinner.
Nov 8
For our last full day on the island, we decided to tour on our own. Fiji has a lot of tourists, but most people spend most of their time in resorts with various organized tours. We managed to navigate successfully and enjoyed what we saw, but were definitely challenged to find support infrastructure for independent tourism.
While our resort was quite beautiful and all the people working were very genuinely friendly, unfortunately the service was comically slow. Our dinner was great, but it turned into a very long production and made for a late evening.
Nov 9
With the transit time back to the airport, we didn’t have any real time in Fiji for our last day, so we ended it with breakfast and a lovely formal send off from the staff before driving ourselves to the airport.
Thankfully, we had a much better arrival experience into Auckland this time, and were out of the airport and on the road quite quickly. As we had an evening arrival, we stayed not too far from the airport, but on the southern edge so we’d have a head start heading out the next day.
Nov 10
For our last days in New Zealand, we wanted to go somewhere different, so we set out for New Plymouth, in the shadow of Mount Taranaki in Egmont National Park. We did cover some familiar ground leaving Auckland, but veered towards the western coast. To maximize the scenery, we choose to take the rural Te Anga Road, that started out quite fine, but eventually turned to dirt. We also quickly learned that cell coverage in New Zealand is spotty in very remote areas, and that Google Maps doesn’t work so well without data or downloaded maps. Luckily, we didn’t get lost, and found lots of beautiful things along the way.
After a full day of driving, it was nice to relax in the hotel room and to hope for nice weather in the morning, to explore Egmont National Park and get up close to Mount Taranaki.
Nov 11
Although we understand that it is often not the case, we were fortunate to have another clear day over Mt Taranaki, so we got an early start to the day to explore the national park.
Back in New Plymouth, we had a bit of a rest in the hotel before heading downtown to find a pub for dinner.
Nov 12
For our last day in New Zealand, we had most of the day to get back to Auckland from New Plymouth. We stuck to the main road this time, but still found some beautiful scenery along the way.
Hamilton was our last stop on the way back to the airport in Auckland. In addition to the Rocky Horror heritage, it had a nice central business district. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to enjoy the Air New Zealand lounge, before our evening flight to Vancouver and onto Toronto. There still would remain one final leg of our trip, returning to Venice, scheduled for February.
