It may not seem like much but boy, was I glad to see the inside of Tom Bradley terminal at LAX. It was a week before Christmas and I was finally about to follow in Darren’s tracks, destination New Zealand. Note to self… in the run up to Christmas, chances are that the merry hell of standard Friday evening LA traffic will be even worse than normal. LAX lies exactly 35 miles from our house. On a good day, door to door is 45 minutes. But you always allow two hours, just in cases.
Three and a half hours it took me! Three and a half hours to go 35 miles to LAX! With two miles to go and traffic at a standstill, panicked passengers were emerging from their Ubers and running towards the airport with their luggage. Adding to the mayhem, given there’s no actual path. They were the lucky ones with just their carry-on luggage – I didn’t fancy my chances much with my super sized cruise suitcases and laptop.
Having survived the very real risk of not making it to the airport, I luckily breezed through check in (everyone else was long gone). I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized I’d make it to the gate for boarding time. And then came to my senses… with a ‘cheap seats’ ticket, there’s no way I’d be near the front of the queue for boarding. Which would give me ooh, a good ten minutes to grab a glass of red in the terminal.
With a midnight departure, I totally lucked out on the overnight portion of the flight with a three seater row to myself. The layover was in Papeete, on the island of Tahiti. I’m sure it’s a tropical paradise although I wouldn’t really know. You don’t get to see too much from the inside of an airport, other than the flying in and out bit.
The first thing that hit me after arriving in Auckland a day and a half after leaving LA (that whole date line thing messes with my mind), was the somewhat Britishness of New Zealand. There were signs for lifts and toilets, and I was quite tickled to hear the satnav in the Uber speaking in a posh English accent.
Given Darren was still off galavanting on his South Island adventure, I’d asked him to book me a nice place, well located. He rather excelled himself actually.
I still had Monday to enjoy New Zealand’s capital city before starting work (the extra day thing again, it was still Sunday in California). I heard exercise is good for jet lag. And what a lovely day I had walking 12 miles across Auckland, technically kind of from one side of New Zealand to the other.
The rest of the week was quite honestly a blur of 4:30am alarm calls and long working days.
And then in flew Darren, as if to remind me that we had a vacation to go on.
Darren had booked us a sunset kayak trip on Friday evening. Should be a nice start to the holiday! Turns out this involved a 3+ mile kayak across open water to Rangitoto island; a picnic; a 2 hour hike up Rangitoto peak, descending at dusk; and a night paddle back in the dark, getting back around midnight. Not quite sure where the sunset kayak bit came in.
Pretty much as soon as we launched the kayak, right into full-on wind and waves, I realized this was going to be challenging. Of course, the front of the kayak takes the brunt of the elements. That’ll be me then. I was soon blinded by what seemed like buckets of salt water being repeatedly thrown in my face. The nose of the kayak see-sawed awkwardly over the crashing walls of waves, each time giving me a fresh drenching. I did my best to continue the arm and shoulder movements but not only was I a little out of practice, I wasn’t expecting quite this level of intensity. Meanwhile Darren was as encouraging and supportive as always, barking his orders from behind. Something about paddling harder.
I was dreading a traumatic re-run on the return journey, especially with the stakes ramped up in the dark. But oh what a difference in the conditions. The wind had mostly dropped and what there was, was behind us. It was oh so peaceful, like gliding across a vast mesmerizing pool of black glass. What felt like gentle ripples aided us from the rear, and our paddles lapped in unison. Tiny lights onshore in the distance were all we needed to guide us. It was approaching midnight and my body succumbed to a relaxed rhythmic trance of paddling, maybe not fully awake after a week of silly o’clock starts.
All those lovely sunrises during the week and just our luck, Seabourn Odyssey rocks up to a grey cloudy morning.
The anticipation for this Christmas and New Year cruise had been building for some time. I was so so so nearly pencils down with work (Darren even more so!), and we were full of excitement for the next two weeks. It was a joy to step onboard and receive a friendly signature Seabourn welcome. In our suite, amid a slew of personalized Welcome Onboard notes, was a delightful platter of Christmas niceties, a bottle of red wine, a stunning bunch of flowers, and the obligatory bottle of champagne. Don’t mind if we do!
