I understand the theory of the international date line but in practical terms I get very confused. I started out early on Tuesday evening from Rio which is 2 hours behind UK and flew to Santiago which is an additional 1 hour behind UK. I then climbed on board another plane and took the long trip to Auckland in the same direction as from Rio to Santiago, arriving at 5.30am today local time (Thursday) and found I am now 13 hours ahead of UK time, having missed Wednesday altogether. Weird.
Living in UK I don’t think we realise just how big the Pacific Ocean is. I put this down to the fact that world maps we look at show half of the Pacific on the left and the other half on the right. So we get no real idea of the size of this ocean. The flight time from Santiago in Chile to Auckland NZ takes 13 hours, flying entirely over the ocean with not a bit of land in sight. It’s a massive piece of water. My plane for this journey was a brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner which had one feature I hadn’t seen before. There are no window blinds; just a small push button underneath the window which changes the colour of the glass from clear to dark. Very sexy! It was a good thing, though, that I read about sparks pouring out of a Dreamliner engine on a recent flight from Sydney to Singapore after I had landed!
Seeing signs in English again and hearing English spoken (albeit with a Kiwi accent) was quite strange having spent the last 6 weeks in mainly non English speaking countries. But I guess I’ll get used to it. In fact, first impressions are that Auckland is a very ‘English’ city as I have already seen a Top Shop, a Specsavers, a Foot Locker and, of course, Vodafone although I’m not sure how ‘English’ this one is.
Mind you, at one point I thought I was back in Havana!
Incidentally, the best of the 3 movies I watched on the flight was ‘Papa Hemingway’ based on a true story of how a Miami journalist became a close friend of Hemingway and witnessed his decline into deep depression interwoven with all the political shenanigans that were going on at that time as the ‘rebel’ Castro became more of a threat to the American backed Batista government. It’s gripping stuff. An excellent movie made more enjoyable for me as a lot of the action was filmed in Hemingway’s house in Havana which, of course, I visited.
Working wharves can often be in the more grotty parts of a city (e.g. Southampton) but here the obviously affluent downtown area merges effortlessly into the docks where a multitude of ferries ply between Auckland and the nearby islands.
And it’s not only the small ferries that go back and forth from here. I was slightly taken aback when I turned a corner and saw this about 20 metres from where I was standing, almost as if it was parked in the High Street!
14 storeys high and BIG!
Central Auckland is surprisingly hilly, being so close to the water so good exercise for the calf muscles
and there are a number of quite interesting little side streets where some effort has been made to get into the Christmas spirit.
The novel I bought in Lima lasted me till my final day in Rio. So, today, I found an excellent bookshop and bought 2 more. But oh, the price! Double what I would have paid in the UK. So, if this is the shape of things to come here, I will have to watch the pennies. For sure, some of the problem is the £ exchange rate but maybe New Zealand is an expensive place anyway.
I have absolutely no idea what time my body thinks it is but as I only cat napped on the flights, I am feeling a tad sleepy right now. So, an early night, I think and with luck I will be bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow ready for some serious street pounding.
Until then
Phileas
thelasthurrahsite 