Esther: Australia

The last couple of weeks in New Plymouth I have mainly been working. During Easter I worked on the translating of the website while still enjoying the 4 day weekend: we had a lovely chocolate fondue with Rob, Janine, Leonie and Petra on Easter Sunday evening and enjoyed cooked eggs for breakfast on Easter Monday. It was a lovely long weekend with the weather so so, so perfect for staying indoors, playing games with each other and working on the laptop. Since the long weekend also meant a very short week I decided to work on Friday morning as well to get a bit of work done. In the afternoon I went to see Hop, the movie about the Easter Bunny (aptly named EB) who did not wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps and be the next Easter Bunny. Quite a funny movie, but made for a younger audience with less quirks for adults than the average kid’s movies that I’ve seen lately (Gnomeo and Juliet, Rio, the one about Rapunzel). Still nice though.

On Sunday evening I went into work again for 2 hours to meet up with Rob, my boss, who unfortunately never showed. Monday was very disastrous: my USB stick with all my work on it died and I hadn’t saved my recent work anywhere else. Yes I know that is stupid, but I was about to save it all when it died…. I was about to hide under a desk and cry my eyes out, but since that wouldn’t get me anywhere I decided to work as hard and as long as I could to recover what I lost. And so I did for the next couple of days. On Thursday my colleagues from the office gave me an apron and oven mitts (I had brought some baking a couple of times to work) to say goodbye. Very sweet! I had a last chat with Rob about my work and off to the hostel to have a farewell dinner at The Bach near the harbor of New Plymouth with Rob and Janine. Lovely food, good company, a nice evening. Friday morning was my last morning in NP, so time to organize a few more things, go to the library and post office for the last time, get all my money from my kiwi bank account etc. Weird. Janine gave me a little knitted penguin, Kaiser. Of course there is a story behind that one! I had been baking a few things from my new NZ baking book and so asked Rob what he was going to bake. He promised to make dinner one night and after a practice run the day before he made Kaiser smachen (or something like that) for the three of us. The following day Janine went to Back Beach to swim and found a little penguin who wasn’t doing so well, so she brought him to the Department of Conservation people to take care of him. Rob went to see the little penguin as well and we decided to name him Kaiser, after the Kaiser smachen. The following day Kaiser escaped from the DOC people and went into the open ocean by himself, never to be seen again.

Friday afternoon Rob and I walked towards the bus station and started our 6,5 hour journey to Auckland, where we said goodbye and each went to our accommodation. I booked a room in the All Seasons hotel (tiny, but good) and enjoyed an evening on my own (we didn’t arrive in Auckland until 10 o’clock in the evening, so not that much time to enjoy the room) and went to the airport the next morning after breakfasting with ANZAC biscuits that Janine baked and gave as a farewell present. The bus driver was really nice and waited for me when he saw me coming and the trip to the airport went smoothly. Auckland airport before check in is rather crappy, not much space to sit, not much to do (downstairs, I didn’t want to lug around my stuff everywhere), so I was nr 3 at the check in counter. All went well until halfway across the ocean I realized I left my black jacket somewhere on the airport near the gate…. Of course I’ve contact the airport, but nothing has been found/handed in :’(

Sydney was weird: normally you are checked for everything, your bags are scanned for everything, there are sniffer dogs etc, you feel like a potential criminal trying to enter their pristine country to end their peace and happiness by bringing in potential diseases, bombs etc. This time: nothing. So weird. No cues for immigration, I got my entry stamp without even showing my visa and within 2 minutes, my bag did not have to go through the scanning machines, there were no dogs and when I told them that I only had commercially made tea bags I was allowed to walk through without inspection. Quickest entry in to Oz ever I think, 10 minutes from bag pick up until I was outside… there were no trains running that weekend to the central station, so they provided free busses, hooray, that saved me $15. When on the way to the central station I realized I hadn’t written down the address of the hostel anywhere (I had a confirmation of the reservation, but that one didn’t contain any contact details). So after walking around aimlessly at the station I found an information point where they printed out a route planner for me (it is a 2 minute walk, we literally look out over the central station). The hostel is nice, big, good beds, roomy rooms, but of course it has bunk beds, dirty showers and is no Seaspray house….

Sydney is lovely and it is good to be back and see the familiar sites again: Darling Harbour, the Bridge, the Opera House, Queen Victoria Building, the Botanical Gardens etc. I took a 3 hour walking tour on Sunday morning, where Clare was our tour guide (born and raised in Sydney). It’s nice to hear some inside stories and see some things I hadn’t seen before. After that I went to Mrs Macquaries point to take another picture of the Opera House and Bridge together and after an 8,5 hour walking day decided to go back to the hostel and relax. Yesterday, Monday, I went to Manly in the morning, walked around from Manly Beach to Shelley Beach and through the bush to the former Artillery School and back towards the pier in about 3 hours. It was extremely windy so I decided to head back to CBD, change my Kiwi $ into Ozzie $ and relax in the hostel. There I met Lisette, a Dutch girl and we decided to go to the cinema together to see Something Borrowed. Very classic romantic story with a predictable ending, but nice to watch. Today is my last full day in Sydney and I will try to get my new sim card activated (3 days and 3 phone calls with no results so far, so I am going to find a Telstra shop today and get this organized or get my money back). More news probably from Adelaide, my next stop!

Zirka Circus, New Plymouth