wellington

I'm in Wellington! It took me about 33 hours door-to-door, so I was very excited to get here...but then my hostel room wasn't ready so I had to wait 4 more hours to shower and change. I got about 3 hours of sleep on my LA-Auckland flight...AirNZ had an excellent movie/tv selection this time around so that kept me up longer than intended! Now I'm fighting to stay awake til evening so I can get onto schedule for the new time zone (17 hours ahead of EST).

I missed my first Auckland - Wellington flight because the LA-Auckland one was delayed, and nearly missed the second one for the same reason, despite putting in good effort on the Auckland International Airport 1K Run between the domestic and international terminals...with my three backpacks in tow. Fortunately they have free+numerous luggage carts, but they kept sliding off. Before that, when I was waiting at the baggage claim to pick up my stuff to go through customs/biosecurity, the cute little yellow-vested beagle-bloodhound biosecurity dog singled out my carryon bag because of the fruit I'd had in it on the plane, and the ensuing hand-inspection of ALL of my luggage even before I got to the checkpoint (where they repeated the process) contributed to the near-miss...

The Wellington flight, like the one before it, was pretty turbulent but fortunately the famed Wellington fog didn't prevent our landing as it so often does. After dropping my stuff off in the hostel's storage room, I headed to the grocery store to get stuff for the N Island road trip (begins very early tomorrow morning!) and then met Martha at Rahzoo for lunch - they have a great 3- or 4-salad combination plate.

I have to say I absolutely love Wellington's 'walkability,' and today's activities made me realize how much I missed the built-in exercise I got when living/working here - 6K/day (with hills!) at the very least.

I'm at the downtown YHA, a gorgeous eco-conscious hotel-like high-rise hostel that I stayed at after my lease was up here last July. Next up for today: a trip to the library for fun-books and Fly-Fishing for Dummies, a visit to Kathmandu [camping/outdoor goods store], meeting Jamie to finish any pre-roadtrip preparation, then early to bed!