New Zealand: Day 32
February 3, 2013
When I woke up this morning, on this, my last day on this trip to New Zealand, I could see that the weather was about to take a turn for the worse. Cirrostratus clouds dominated the sky indicating rain was on its way. The sky cleared somewhat as the day progressed, but it remained partly cloudy all day. Temperatures remained very warm, but it was no longer the "heat wave" New Zealand had been experiencing over the past week.
The trip ended in many respects the same way it began: I wasted no time after my arrival at the Auckland International Airport 32 days ago to begin my explorations of and adventures in this wonderful country. Within two hours of my arrival I was on a sailboat crossing the harbour en route to a day of visiting wineries. At the end of the trip, I devoted every last minute to adventures and explorations.
This morning I came close, oh so close, to my goal of getting dunked in the Kawarau River after jumping off a bridge. The staff told me they would do their best to ensure I would be dipped into the river up to my waist, but they could make no promises. It was early in the day, and they still were calibrating the appropriate length of bungy cord to use given the height of the river today.
The instructions were a little different: as I approached the water I was to pull my head towards my chest and extend my arms to part the waters. The river rushed up to receive me, but we only shook hands; I touched the river, put my hands into its waters, and then was pulled away. Perhaps it was for the best. I admit to feeling a small degree of anxiety, unlike the previous two bungy jumps. This time I was unsure what the sensation would be like as I was a "Dunkin' Do'Nick" into the cold waters. Would it be unpleasant? I had to find out.
Photos and video of the final adventure are located here.
The final adventure completed, I returned to the B&B to finalize packing, take another shower, and change into traveling clothes. The day which had been overcast at the beginning was now sunny, and I didn't have to worry about my flight out of Queenstown being delayed due to weather. It was imperative that I make the 7:15 pm flight from Auckland to Los Angeles because I had a premium seat, and I did not want a repeat of the mishaps I had run into on my way to Auckland, which caused me to lose a first-class seat. Unfortunately I did not manage to "win" an upgrade on the return flight, so I had to "settle" for the comforts of business class on my way back to the US.
The flight from Queenstown to Auckland was a splendid farewell to a country I had come to appreciate so deeply. It was a reverse traversal of my journey from one tip of the country to the other. I had a window seat, and I had a thrilling view as we passed close to the Remarkables on our way out of Queenstown. I even managed to get an aerial view of a private game reserve Steph had pointed out that had been used for the scene when the Orcs on their wargs attacked Frodo and his compatriots in The Fellowship of the Ring. How much more fabulous can it get, I thought to myself, that I was able to continue The Lord of the Rings tour even as I was departing!
The pre-flight safety video was hilarious. Air New Zealand, "the official airline of Middle-Earth" (and you know they had to pay for the rights to use that phrase), played the Lord of the Rings angle to the hilt, showing a cabin full of orcs, elves, dwarves and hobbits trying with only a modest degree of success to handle the safety features of the aircraft. All was well, though, because a wizard was piloting the plane. Even Sir Peter Jackson made an appearance -- and a disappearance. It's not a game of riddles; you only get one guess how he did it.
And it never stopped until we were a few minutes away from landing in Auckland. Instead of an in-flight movie, we were treated to a Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trivia quiz. I did well, which should be a surprise to no one; I probably knew the correct answers to 85% of the questions, a respectable B. I need to re-read The Hobbit so that I could answer the more obscure questions related to that world, and I didn't know some of the movie-related items. How many feet of film were used in the shooting of the trilogy? Over six million. How many times did Gollum use the word "precious" in The Return of the King? 17. How many Oscars (TM) did the trilogy win? Also 17 (but I knew that one; I just thought it was an interesting coincidence). My attention was divided, though, between the trivia quiz and the view outside my window.
The most marvelous moment was seeing Mount Doom, er Mount Tongariro, from the air. Not only did I have an unobstructed view, I could see quite clearly the outline of Mount Tongariro National Park, an almost perfect circle marked with the volcano at its center and farmlands crowding the park's borders. I couldn't help but think of the over-the-top fan who had spent US$3,300 for a replica of the One Ring, and then hired a helicopter to fly her over Mount Tongariro so she could toss the ring into the volcano's crater. This was truly an extreme illustration of fandom, and the degree of passion the films inspired.
A New Zealand couple sat next to me. They were not as amused as I was with the pre-flight video, and even seemed scornful that I so clearly enjoyed it. I made a friendly comment, and the woman said she wished they would just move on; she already had seen the video a number of times. She obviously fell into the "bored of the rings" category. However, she was in the minority, at least among the native Kiwis I met. With only a few exceptions, they were delighted with the attention the films had brought to their country, and the dollars that came with it.
The shift from the domestic flight to the international flight went more smoothly than I had expected. I had purchased the Queenstown to Auckland ticket separately from the Los Angeles/Auckland round trip. Someone in the airline's call center told me that I could merge the two tickets on the return flight, and check my bags all the way from Queenstown to Los Angeles if I arrived at the airport an hour prior to the flight. I made sure I was at the airport a full two hours prior to departure time, but the gate agent told me the call center had been in error. I would have to collect my luggage -- and it was indeed a troublesome amount to lug around by this point -- in Auckland, transfer to the international terminal and then recheck them. Fortunately, Air New Zealand treats its business class customers very well, providing an entirely separate check-in area and staff. As in Queenstown, I had some difficulty ensuring that my baggage adhered to the weight limits, and I had to shift some items between checked bags and my carry-on in order to avoid excess weight charges. After a brief wait for assignment to a gate, the plane lofted into the clouds, leaving New Zealand behind as if it had all been a dream.
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All the feared problems I expected with the transfer from the international flight to a US domestic flight did not arise either. I was shocked by how much money I had spent in New Zealand on items to bring back with me; I exceeded the duty free allowance by $15. Still, I breezed through passport control and customs. The advice the on-flight Air New Zealand concierge had given me was good: I walked (or, rather, lugged) from Terminal 2 to Terminal 7, passing by the iconic LAX UFO landmark. It was quicker than waiting for the intra-terminal transfer, and I had "only" half an hour to get checked in for the final two legs of my trip home. There was a brief moment of panic when checking in at United Airlines; the automated kiosk reported that it had no reservation on file for me. A swift kick from an agent (to the kiosk, not me!) remedied the problem, and then I faced the biggest time-consumer of the entire flight: the Department of Homeland Security's TSA. Oh, yes, I was back in the US of A.
Soon I was on the final leg of the trip home. The best welcome was waiting for me. My Grace, who I had so cruelly abandoned for 32 days, was happy to see me. My father, who became Grace's adoptive father in my absence, asked to test my cat's memory and affections by letting her make the first move rather than me approach her when I returned home. After only a tentative moment, she moved towards me, even though my father and brother were trying to call her away. "I'll sue you for alienation of affections if you keep that up," I said, as I nuzzled my purring darling. And so comes to an end the longest day. It's a neat trick, I thought, squeezing 38 hours into a single day, arriving home only an hour after my departure from New Zealand. I sometimes wish I had been able to do that while I was in grad school.
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Last revised: August 27, 2015.
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