Travel Karma- Pt 3 Never Been This Far Away From Home

So everyone was supposed to arrive in Auckland New Zealand by 15th Feb at the latest for the Stag do.... needless to say I didn't. Work put pay to that months before so the earliest I could fly was Sunday 17th meaning I won't arrive till the morning of Tuesday 19th [you lose a day crossing the international date line]. This also meant that I had to fly direct meaning 24hrs on a plane with only 2hrs to stretch your legs at LAX... So as I was going for a shorter period and wasn't going to have fun in the Maldives for a week before arriving and mainly because I'm a media whore I decide to fly business class... now this I can recommend!

I was chauffeur driven to Heathrow, relaxed before the flight in the Business lounge, had a very comfortable seat and good food, checked me email and could've showered at LAX, slept most of the way from LAX to Auckland... nice! I thought maybe things were looking up for this holiday... there was a scary moment where I had to smuggle Cuban cigars through US Customs but it was all good.

So 6am Phil [Lead Singer] and Sandy met me with man hugs at Auckland airport and we headed back to Sandy and Sarah's to wake the girls up.

Phil, Ruth and I thought the decent thing to do before the wedding madness started was to leave Sandy and Sarah to it and go off and do some sight seeing. So we piled in their rent-a-wreck ancient Toyota Corolla [you can see where this is going can't you...] and headed to some place called Devonport or something North of Auckland on the other side of the water and the bridge:

Now what you seemingly can't tell from these photos is it was actually a nice sunny day [at least that's how I remember it] we certainly got sun burnt. What I soon discovered is that Auckland weather is about as changeable as it could possibly be. It can leap in seconds from rain to glorious sunshine.

So we had a nice Brunch at a bakery place, a lovely walk along the beach and then a pint in a pub. We've figured we shouldn't head back yet so consulted the guide book and decide to head up the Sky Tower. Its the ridiculously tall building in that last photo.

Now I'm not great with heights. Its not that I get scared, it's vertigo, its biological and there is nothing I can do about it. In my youth I was a theatre spark and the definition of that is to be able to hang upside down from a lighting rig, rewiring a plug while smoking a cigarette... this I have done. But people knew never to stand beneath me if I was rigging as I would break out in a mad sweat and drip back down onto that stage...

So when for some reason I was pushed in a lift with a group of Japanese tourists but with out the other two I was a little bit uncomfortable as I waited for them at the top.

Anyway it was a fun sight we had a nice coffee, cake and I was utterly bemused by the people bungee jumping off the tower; "my life is complete enough with out ever having to experience that madness".

We did some window shopping on the road with posh shops on, sent postcards, drank whiskey, eat tapas and drank local pinot noir... before eventually returning to meet Sandy and then his family for a pint... by which time I could ignore jet lag no longer and was ready for sleep.

The next day was the drive to the wedding venue an hour south of Auckland...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljZKR23x7nI