We had our Farewell Dinner at the Rydges hotel where we were staying at 5:30 p.m. Saturday night. I got a lot of compliments on Kerry’s sparkling purple top I saved for the last night. Most of the Cape Eight sat at a table together, with Mary Lou and Carolyn Kirk, the attorney/Pilates/Yoga teacher and her mom from California. Peter kept making the rounds of the tables, almost like at a wedding!, collecting first the headphones from our Whisperers, the $150 sets we were given at the start of our trip. Then the speakers themselves, then our papers with credit card payment info on any of the optional trips we had selected. I had a $603 extra bill for mine. Only the last one, for $115 was a waste for me as that was the dinner in Rotorua where I was sick and couldn’t eat a thing and sat outside. But, oh, well!! I did go to the Maori performance and saw the steam vents!
Fourteen of our group were staying and doing the Post trip for 5 days to the Bay of Islands, up in the northern part of New Zealand. The rest of us had to be on the bus at 3 a.m. to get to the airport for the flight to Sydney. I went with them to the airport but my flight was an hour later. After dinner we picked up LARGE bags with our “box” lunch for the morning. It was an enjoyable evening saying good bye to a nice group of people.
Everyone was loaded by 3 a.m. and off we went, after saying good-bye to Peter, who was not accompanying us to the airport. Everything went smoothly and after I checked in, I headed to Gate 15/16 - a LONG walk, to sit with the group until they boarded for their 6:10 a.m. flight. They were having about a 3 hr. layover in Sydney and then the long flight on to LAX. A couple were staying the night at the airport there, but Barbara and others were changing planes and continuing on to JFK or Boston.
I went to my gate and boarded for my 7 a.m. flight to Sydney. I slept most of the way but then had a nice conversation with my seatmmate who was a young man from Chile, living and working for 7 years at a hotel in Auckland. He was on a holiday in Melbourne. He is from Santiago, which is almost straight across the Pacific from NZ.
I had found on the internet that the Sydney airport had a baggage storage facility so opted to pay the $40+ to store my big suitcase until Tuesday when I fly out to Honolulu. Again the long detailed customs process and then found the storage facility and was down to my two backpacks. I got a train ticket to Granville where I had a reservation at an airbnb. I had to train to Central station downtown (near where we stayed) and then change to Yellow Line out to Granville. Met a family with 2 sisters, a brother and a dad who were just off a cruise ship headed home. We had a nice chat and they helped me get off at the right station.
Chris’s directions to his apartment were great, with photos, maps, etc. I passed a Subway shop and stopped for a wonderful familiar lunch as I had had my apple confiscated at the Customs and had only eaten an orange so far. I got as far as a park near Chris’ where I stopped in the shade. There was a couple there who were just taking down a table and stuff where they had been set up to advertise a local Granville Environmental group, and also that day was a “Clean up Australia” day and they were cleaning up in the park. They walked me around the corner to the entrance of the apartment complex. Very friendly and delightful! I have found everyone I’ve run into in these two countries helpful and friendly and very kind!
Chris’ answered the door and said he was getting a bit worried as to where I was. I had said around noon I thought I would be there. My room is upstairs, the whole apartment is very Zen like, all in black and white. He showed me around the living room and kitchen, which I’m free to use. I knew I’d mostly be eating out in the next couple of days with Darren and his family. I called Darren on the house phone and said I’d shower and rest for a couple of hours and then call him back and meet up with him.
I was able to cool down with the lovely fan in my room and finally called Darren about 2:30. He said he’d meet me out front when he arrived. Turns out Elizabeth St. where we were meeting has a green park gap between the two ends and he was on one end looking for me and I was on the other. After a few mixups and coming back to the apartment ( my cell phone doesn’t work here so I had to rely on Chris’ house phone to connect with him), we met up.
Had a nice conversation with Chris (it was Sunday so he was home) and was working on fixing an old computer to connect to his TV set. He looks about 12 but it turns out he is a 31 year old pediatrician (resident, I think) who is finishing up his studies here. He is from Malaysia and his parents live there. So when he finishes, he will try to find a position somewhere in Australia, maybe Perth on the west side which would make his family happy as it’s much closer to Kuala Lumpur where they are! He has been doing airbnb for a couple of years and has had wonderful visitors staying. I will have to register my room over the garage for this, when I’m home long enough, and for the off season when the house isn’t rented out!
More on my evening with Darren and his family in next installment.
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