Blog Number 1  - Friday JAnuary 20

Arrived in San Diego on the 7^th of January, picked up our car and found the vrbo in Vista with the aid of Brunhilde (GPS voice). John and Louise drove over from Mesa and spent a couple of days. Took the coaster from Oceanside into San Diego and visited Old Town, Little Italy and USS Midway during the next few days.

 John and I took out dos amigas for lunch.

 Just to rub it in… beach walking (with no snow and +25 degrees) was REALLY nice!

USS Midway tour was very interesting and highly recommended; many volunteers who had previously served aboard the Midway made each stop on the audio tour interesting. Commissioned in 1945 and was active during the Viet Nam war and decommissioned in 1992 and was the American flagship during Operation Desert Storm. The grunt sailors had a busy and confining life while the pilots lived the life of Riley. Seaman’s quarters consisted of one of 6 vertical bunks and a locker 1ft x 2ft x 3ft. A typical day was 4 hour watch, then an 8 hour shift followed by a 4 hour watch then 8 hours of “free time”.

Ready for take-off

Crew of 4500 sailors, 200 pilots, 60 cooks, 600 in engineering plus doctors, dentists, et.al. Daily… 10 tons of food, 13, 500 meals, 3000 potatoes (the non Dan Quayle spelling), 1000 loaves of bread, 4500 pounds of beef, and 500 pies. The skill of pilots had to be amazing plus the coordination of the catapult crews to launch the planes was demanding and dangerous. One jet launched every 90 seconds from the catapult, 0 to 180 mph in 2.5 seconds.

Spent 2 nights in Hemet visiting friends before our flight out of LAX; best to avoid LAX in future travel plans. In addition to the insanity on the freeways to get to the airport… did you know they herd travellers around in LAX using cattle prods? Drove up to Idylwyld and did a hike in the San Bernadino forest.












 

9 ½ hours flight to Tahiti, as you get off the plane you are enveloped in humidity, smell of vegetation and flowers and we are looking forward to 3 days there on the return flight. After re-fuel and new crew, 5 ½  hours to Auckland. Heather’s cousins (Herb and Gillian) have treated us royally. Auckland is a wonderful laid back, quiet city great for walking about and so quiet. It is hard to imagine that we were in a large city of 1.5 million. We heard only 1 siren in two days. Took the return ferry (50 minutes) from Whangaparaoa (pronounced Fanga para oh ah) into Auckland. These kiwi names are not easy plus unlike British television, there are no English subtitles to turn on when the locals speak to you. So our favourite phrase is… “could you please repeat that?” then… “Once more, please?”

The skytower in Auckland provides an amazing panorama of the city and harbour (The City of Sails and the long white cloud).

Visited an art exhibit that showcased “The Maori Portraits” which consisted of the documented paintings of all Maori chiefs plus tribal life from the mid 1870s until the early 20^th century. Amazing works by a Bohemian artist (Gottleib Lindauer… google his works) using paint and photography plus a documentary film of how the British subdued the Maoris and expropriated the land.

 

Went to the fish market yesterday and saw the fishmonger chase a HUGE (almost a meter long) crawfish around the tank for ten minutes to finally catch it. After he weighed it and told the guy the price was $310 and the guy said “I don’t want it”. The poor traumatized crawfish went back into the tank to live another day.

 

Herb and Gillian have heartily endorsed our “1 toilet paper roll rule for guests” and last night the roll ran out so… today we pick up our van and will head north with the aid of Brunhilde and lots of advice and travel tips from the cousins.

View below is from Gillian's parents home looking south toward  Auckland. Beautiful!