Manly Beach

I woke up in the morning at 3:53 - wide awake and terrified that the day was ruined since I had woken up so early. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. When I woke up again after who knows how long, I was delighted to find it was 8:30 in the morning.

Jay had found a little note about running routes around the hotel and given our location, we decided to go on the shortest of the paths. We started at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (where the hotel is located) and ran around the Sydney Opera House and got back to the hotel for a short 25 minute run that was all of 2.24 miles. We basically ran through a rush of office traffic at Circular Quay, but it was a really beautiful run and more of a jog as we kept at a pace of a little over 8:31 minutes per mile.Sheila stayed in the room with a hair dryer drying the clothes we had washed in the sink the previous night that were still a little damp.

For our second day in Australia, we had decided to take the ferry from circular quay over to Manly and hang out at the famous beach there. The ferry ride was gorgeous and the weather was wonderful enough for us to stay on the open-air upper deck of the ferry. The views of Sydney leaving circular quay were breathtaking.

Manly is a quaint seaside town with a promenade lined with shops of all kinds that leads directly from the wharf to the beach. We wandered around the shops and decided to have Barramundi and chips and garlic prawns for a take-away lunch. We sat right on the beach and enjoyed the lunch. The beach was not crowded at all, probably since it was a week day afternoon, but many little ones dug holes in the sand and we watched groups of surfers tackle the waves. Sheila and Jay whipped off their shoes and socks and had a field day playing in the ocean. We also did some cheap souvenir shopping (yes, everything in these shops were made in China) and enjoyed some Moovenpick ice cream.

The 3:45 ferry brought us back to circular quay at 4:15 PM (the ferries are incredibly perfect on times, everyone leaving and arriving exactly on schedule). We walked back to the hotel and grabbed our luggage before taking a cab to the airport. The ride to the airport was uneventful.

We checked in for our flight and were told that the flight was delayed by about 40 minutes. As it is, we were scheduled to reach Christchurch at 11:30 PM. So, the delay meant we arrived in NZ at an unearthly hour. We stopped at "Pie Face" for dinner. I had Thai Chicken Curry, Sheila chose Curry Beef and Jay picked the Tandoori Vegetable pie. These were small, but quite filling. As we headed to our gate, we discovered that Sydney airport seems more like a massive shopping mall than an airport. Vast duty-free shops contain everything you could possibly want to buy and are displayed in tantalizing ways. We could have spent half a day right in the airport if we had wanted.

Our flight eventually took off and we arrived in Christchurch after midnight. Customs and immigration were relatively smooth and then came the terrifying prospect of driving in New Zealand. When I told the immigration guy we were driving to Queenstown, he looked up sharply and said "Are you used to driving in ice and snow?" I assured him I was. Still, he insisted on warning me about the need for chains and the widespread occurrence of "black ice" on the roads that are difficult to see. I was already nervous about driving on the left side of the road. I picked up the rental car, a 4WD SUV and we slowly headed out. Since it was about 1 AM, there was no traffic on the streets that made my initial foray into left-side-driving a little less stressful.

The 298 Westside Lodge is a cute little road motel. We rang the night bell and after a few minutes, a big man leaned out of a window above us and literally threw down a key from the upper flow and told us to go to Room 8 and that he would talk to us in the morning. The room is nice in a very different way from the Park Hyatt. It is a typical "motor lodge" with a kitchenette. I would call it a reasonably large room had it not been for the massive room we had at the Park Hyatt. We struggled a bit to turn the heat on (not realizzing that once you hit the "heat pump on" button, it takes a while to get going.

Went to bed at about 1:30 and I was up at 7 AM. The kids are still asleep and that gave me the time to figure out how to access the paid internet and write up this blog post.

Given all we've seen and done so far, it is hard to believe that our trip is only two days old. I'm excited for the rest of this trip!