Day 0 – To New Zealand
49°11'41"N 123°10'44"W
I lost an entire day.
I took off on a plane from Vancouver on Friday evening. I went to sleep shortly after midnight. Less than 8 hours later, I woke up, checked the time, and discovered that it was approximately four in the morning. On Sunday. Saturday 17 October 2009 did not happen for me. I skipped it. I lost an entire day. And as I’ll continue to fly west from here, I will never, ever get it back.
While I have done a fair bit of travelling, it has been limited primarily to Canada, the United States and sporadic forays to Europe. While this is admittedly more than some, there are whole tracts of the world that have remained unexplored to date. Including the entire southern hemisphere. This, however, was about to change.
As a result of a large research project that I was involved in for several years, I managed to get an invitation to speak at a conference in New Zealand. A place that the locals call ‘godzone’ – as in ‘god’s own land’. 4 million inhabitants, nearly 40 million sheep (that’s more than 9 sheep for every man, woman and child in the place) and miles of remote, unexplored territory that ranges from beaches to rain forests to mountains to volcanoes. And in that flying to the other side of the world involves several time zones, and one wants to be in top form before speaking, leaving a little early would probably be in order. This, of course, creates a perfect opportunity to rent a motorcycle and see the sights.
Getting there, of course, is always half the fun. After a disturbingly stressful week, the last thing I was ready to do was get on a plane – but get on a plane I was going to do. Edmonton to Vancouver, and then Vancouver straight to Auckland courtesy of Air New Zealand. First, of course, I had to deal with the 4.5 hour layover in Vancouver. All in all, the trip would be close to 24 hours door to door. Not undoable, but pretty extreme nonetheless.
The flight to Vancouver was extremely pleasant, if bumpy, and the wait in Vancouver was more tedious than anything else. Although I managed to discover the joys of Facebook’s ‘chat’ feature, and had a pleasant online conversation with my good friend Elizabeth in Toronto while also chatting with my darling wife in Edmonton. All in all, it was an easy way to pass the time until the flight to Auckland boarded.
As I’ve noted previously, traveling by motorcycle results in some of the most interesting conversations. People recognize a helmet, a riding jacket or a pair of boots (or in my case, all three) and immediately start up a conversation. Just leaving Edmonton, I got an enthusiastic thumbs up from the guy running the x-ray machine, the check-in person in the lounge and the gate attendant. Once I was on board the flight to Auckland, one of the flight attendants took it upon himself to inquire about my plans and immediately took it upon himself to make sure that I was well organized by the time that we reached Auckland.
It will always baffle me how something this large stays airborne.
Roland polled his colleagues on a destination for my day-long ride on Monday, and provided some excellent suggestions of destinations for Sunday afternoon after I had picked up the bike. By the time we had landed, I had hand-drawn maps, detailed directions and recommendations for places to stop and eat. The friendliness of people in New Zealand is supposed to be legendary; I’d have to say that so far I agree.
Some enormously promising scenery.
It’s an interesting process to land in New Zealand. Apart from the usual hike from the plane to customs, to be rewarded with a snaking line of humanity waiting to clear customs, you also get to have your entire collection of baggage x-rayed before they let you into the country. Apparently, this is to keep unacceptable plant matter and other biological bits out of the country. Although I rather suspect it helps with the identification of untold amounts of contraband as well.
My first sight of New Zealand as the sun rises.
7:30am on Sunday found me in the back of a cab, leaving the airport and on the way to my hotel. An opportunity to shower, change and sort myself out before I pick up my motorcycle. From there, I get to spend a pleasant day exploring Auckland.
The plane that got me here.