Our first flight was very smooth from Portland to Los Angeles. The next flight was the one we were dreading. Luckily, the pilot got us to Auckland in less than the predicted 13 hours and 10 minutes we were told at the airport. The down side was that it was 12 hours and 45 minutes. That is a long long time to be on a seat in an airplane.
We both managed to sleep a couple of hours, but definitely not enough. Anyone who has traveled many hours on a plane knows that it isn’t a proper long flight unless you are next to a baby that screams all night long, and we were lucky enough to get one of those. But eventually the flight ended and we were awake enough to find the hotel shuttle bus and get ourselves to our hotel at 9am.
Of course, no hotel will let you check in at 9am, so they kindly agreed to store our luggage, and we both splashed our faces in the bathroom and ran fingers through our hair and changed clothes. We turned in our bags and got directions to the nearest bus stop. The Auckland airport is a long way from downtown.
At the hotel front desk I had downloaded the Auckland Transit app and that was an excellent idea! It has a trip planner and a realtime map so we constantly kept track of where we were going and where we needed to go. It’s as convenient as possible, using a credit card to tap in and tap out. We rode the 38 bus as far north as it would go, which was about 30 minutes, then began walking. (The charge at the end of the day was $2.60 US dollars) We were only about halfway to Auckland city proper, but it was good enough for us.
The neighborhood of Onehunga was comfortable and relaxing for us. It felt like a small town. Cute little houses, people outside mowing their lawns, small shops a little worse for wear. The neighborhood was filled with modest Victorian-style homes and small gardens with fences behind sidewalks. We identified plants we weren’t used to seeing, like the bottlebrush tree and a banana tree. “Not quite ready,” said the friendly man in his yard after we explained that we had stopped to admire the bananas. The streets kept surprising us because the traffic came from different lanes and more than once I almost got squashed walking into a street thinking I had checked for traffic, but had glanced the wrong direction. But the good news is: we both lived.
We headed for Cornwall Park because I am a U2 fan. This place is also called One Tree Hill, and I listened to a song by the same name about 2000 times when I was in high school. This is the place the song references.
I had done research before the trip, and saw that it’s a nice park with trails and a peak at the center we could climb to. I recalled our trip to Italy in 2021, when blogger friend Manja and her man suggested that in order to keep awake after an overnight flight, we should stay active. It worked. Though were were pretty tired after the flight, the walking and the breezes were exhilarating. At the top, the views were outstanding.
The weather was nice. There was a lot of cloud cover, and the temperature alternated between a bit warm and a bit cool. Actually that’s perfect. We ended up walking about 4.5 miles, to include all around the park, then around Onehunga, trying to find a beer. It was midday on a Sunday – not sure if that was the problem – but most restaurants and bars were closed.
We dropped off the hill and made our way back toward the bus terminal, while keeping beer in mind… We found this street sign, which was perfect:
Even though it was January 5th when we walked, it was January 4th back home in Oregon, and that is Cameron’s birthday. He is Kellen’s fiancé. I had wanted so much to wish him a happy birthday on his birthday, but realized that January 4th would not exist for Pedro and me this year. We caught our plane on January 3rd, and arrived on January 5th. BUT!! It finally dawned on me that it was still the 4th back home. All this time travel hurt my brain, but I tried not to think about it too hard, and wished Cam a happy birthday, then sent him a photo of this sign in honor of the day. ❤
We walked all over the place looking for beer, and finally found The Rusty Morris open. It was exactly what we wanted. A beautiful establishment in a restored post office building with high, open ceilings and open windows and an outside patio and friendly staff and most of all, cold beer. The lovely lady suggested fries and we were immediately on board. We scarfed the potatoes and a pint each and then decided we were hungry for real. We headed north again and found a great Japanese place and got a huge order to go. Hopped on the first 38 Bus we saw and it took us home again.
By this time the hotel had a room ready for us. We hauled our stuff up there and let out a breath. Satisfied that we had done enough, we showered, devoured our food, and climbed into bed by 7 pm.
Bird total day one: 3
Conscious Engagement 
Oh, you time travellers! Thanks for this report. It was lovely to arrive with you. I forgot that I gave you time zone adjusting tips in Italy, AS IF I’d done that a lot! 😀 Let the good vibes last!
I believe it was Marco’s idea originally, and you passed it on and then made it happen for us. We were grateful. ❤ Thank you for coming to this hemisphere with us, and I hope to post about day 2 soon. I believe I just ran out of storage space with WP, so I need to come up with a fix first.
Kellen engaged?
Oh yes! Silly me, I put it into the Christmas letter but forgot to tell my blog readers. Derrick, you should be on our Christmas mailing list. I’ll get your post address from you. In the meantime, yes, Kellen and Cameron got engaged a few years ago, during a road trip they took through California. I asked, “So when’s the big date?” and they responded that they have no plans to get married already, they just wanted to be engaged. Ha ha ha! Kids. Anyway, it’s for a good reason: they want to be settled and have some money first, before planning a wedding.
Thanks for the explanation, Crystal XX
I had to laugh at the day/time confusion.
You did get a lot done and yes the sun will burn this time of year even in Aotearoa/New Zealand
I get called Future Boy by some people on WP as I am always a day ahead of everyone 😂
You get used to long flights. I have no choice 🙄
Future Boy!!! That is really funny, and now I think I can relate more, so I’m glad for this experience. I still keep getting confused. It was fun to have a birthday for two days in a row, though. 🙂 Pedro and I were talking about those long flights. We could recall 9- and 11-hour flights, but 13 wins so far. Ooof. That is a bugger. Our sunburns are finally in the healing stage. This means itching and peeling, which is also awful, but we both agreed that we like it better than the pain stage.
The fun of peeling someone’s skin for them 😂
Glad you two are having fun 😀
I’m wondering if you are still there or back home by now since the days are all a mess. Happy Birthday to you as well as Cameron. They have been together a long time. To see you sleeveless in summer weather makes me envious. It’s colder than a well diggers butt here. I think 10 degrees tonight. Wind adds to that. I had no idea you would be heading down under. I always wanted to go see Pauline. Her oldest daughter is in Auckland. Keep on having fun. Happy, Happy birthday.
Hi Marlene! Yes, we are still here. It’s a two-week tour. Today is our last day in Wellington and next week take a ferry to the South Island for the second week. I am excited to go there to see the magnificent mountains. The weather is already much cooler here in Wellington, and should continue to get cooler as we move closer to the South Pole. It is summertime though, so we instantly got hours and hours more daylight than we’re used to. Instead of sunset at 4:25pm, it has moved to a respectable 8:50pm.
I have to tell you: this trip has been a blast. Even with the sunburn, which has been awful for sleeping and distraction. Despite all that, it really truly is the trip of a lifetime that I have been planning for since I saw the first movie and sat through the movie credits of Fellowship of the Ring trying to figure out where it was filmed. That was about 2002. It has taken some time to make it happen.
WowZers! It looks well worth the time it took to plan. I love that you have some time to really immerse yourselves. The hiking and birds and wildlife keep this on my perpetual ” I probably can’t, but sure wish I could” list! Great photography and storytelling make for such a rich experience for those of us watching from afar! Thank you!
Bonnie, I’m glad you came along with us. You could relate to my perpetual quest to spot new birds. Naturally, a Lord of the Rings tour was not about spotting new birds, but it was a private Crystal desire. I did not do very well because we were always whisked on to the next new exciting thing, but I did get some birds, and I will go out of my way to work them into my future NZ blog posts.
Another great post. I have a very similar photo from the Auckland airport….I wonder where that photo is (I’ll have to search). That brought back memories of our visit to NZ. Too bad we didn’t make it to One Tree Hill. Well, we’ll just have to go back haha!
I’m happy that the photos are bringing back memories for you. I’d love to visit again, but as Pedro said, it probably won’t happen unless we win the lottery. It’s a lot of time, trouble, and money to get that far and we will probably choose to see someplace new next time. I’m glad I found One Tree Hill in my research before the trip. I knew it would be close and a nice place to see on our first day there.