Landing in Auckland
January 27, 2023
We touched down in New Zealand - FINALLY! Ben will eventually post a snip about our flights from San Fran to Auckland and getting through customs (SHOCKER - I may have been too honest), but I just wanted to throw together a little something about our first 3 hours here.
As we were walking towards the airport doors to the Rideshare area, we were met with POURING rain. I mean the phrase “raining cats and dogs” didn’t even explain the situation we were about to walk out to. Our first Uber cancels and we are like “WTF”. We get another one assigned to us and before going out, we throw on our rain jackets - or what we thought were rain jackets. Come to find out we both packed water resistant jackets instead of waterproof. Travel and Learn! We do a little 3-2-1 countdown and run out of the airport and tread through ankle deep water. Thank goodness we both had on our WATERPROOF hiking boots. Although our Uber was only .2 (yes point 2) miles away, it took him 30 mins to get around the airport to the pickup spot. The airport roads were FLOODED - I mean as cars were going through, half of their headlights were covered in water - their poor engines! We run through more ankle deep water and hop in our Uber. It was my first time being in a car where the driver’s side is on the right! Definitely going to have to get used to that. We start heading towards the city and as we drive, the ETA keeps staying the same. At this point, we’d been traveling for about 36 hours, we are both starving, we are drenched, and our patience is REAL thin. Due to all the rain Auckland had gotten that day, roads around the city were also starting to flood and close down. Our Uber driver seemed to be a bit impatient, as well, and he eventually came out and said he had not seen anything like this in the 14 years he’d been here. He texted his wife (don’t worry, we were at a dead stop on the highway) to see what was going on and she texted him pictures of the flooding. It took 2 hours instead of the usual 25 minutes to get downtown.
We arrive at Four Points by Sheraton, thank him a few times for driving us and not cancelling, and head in to our hotel. We check in, drop our bags, and go walk to find food. Most places were closed because of the flooding, but we find some Kebabs (imagine a Gyro) and pick up a bottle of red wine. We get back to the hotel room and throw on the news - Auckland had just gone in to a State of Emergency. The airport closed down after we left it.
After seeing the news and all that people were going through, we felt so bad being frustrated with the long Uber ride. Not only did it rain that hard the day we arrived, but the next 3 days have been just as bad. I’m typing right now as of January 31st and Northland areas are still being impacted and going in to State of Emergencies, as well.
I am so thankful we got in to town when we did. Our 36ish hour travel time is nothing compared to what people are going through here right now :(
Stay tuned for more Auckland updates!
