Day 20: Sunday, February 24, 2002
Leaving Melbourne for New Zealand

Carnival entrance in St. Kilda

Today we fly to New Zealand, but our flight leaves at 1:30pm and I'd read about a Sunday crafts fair along the Esplanade in St. Kilda, near our hotel, so I figured there would be time to catch the beginning before we had to leave at 11am. Walendo decided he didn't want to go, so I got up before him and made my way to the tram. They come less often on Sunday and I had to get a specific tram, so I gave myself lots of time. I got to the Esplanade at about 9am, when it supposedly would be starting, but there were only a few people just starting to set up their booths. I guess it starts at 10am. Oh well.

Street in St. Kilda

I slowly walked along the stretch, curious to see how far it went (about 3 blocks), and then noticed there looked like a bit of a town just beyond, so I continued along. First I saw the opening to an amusement park, which was a huge clown face with its mouth as the entryway. It had been in the Melbourne film at the Rialto observation deck, so I guess this was a landmark. Then as I came around the corner, I saw a nice little downtown area which was just beginning to wake up. A few bakery/coffee shops were open, so I stopped at one for a tea and almond croissant. I sat outside and munched it and watched the slow trickle of people go by. Then I got up and wandered down to the end of the row and slowly back again, enjoying the scene. While there I thought about what it's like to travel alone. I was enjoying myself, having the freedom to do what I wanted, but after a little while that always gets old and it's much nicer to be with someone.

St. Kilda Market

I made my way back to the street fair area by around 9:45 and by now there were more vendors set up and plenty more getting set up. I walked up and down the stretch a few times, and each time there were more things to see. I was enjoying the pre-crowd scene, noting how many of the vendors were chatting and gossiping with each other as they each set up. I was also interested in the various ways that people set up their booths, some starting with an iron frame and then adding walls of various kinds to hang stuff, or just tables with fabric over them, arranging their wares on top. I hadn't much thought about how that's done, but now I found it interesting. When I got to the other end again, I noticed a bicycle race of some kind was going on along the street behind the fair. It must have been well into the pack because many of the people looked a little out of shape — some men with pot bellies and chunky women, although that didn't stop them from wearing skimpy, skin-tight clothes. At least they're out there. And it made for an interesting scene.

Scene at St. Kilda Market

I walked back along the strip and by now most people were set up or almost set up. This fair was mostly crafts of different kinds (rather than the cheap wares sold at Queen Victoria MArket), but little of it really tempted me. Only the wood bowls and cutting boards drew my eye for a second look, but we'd bought enough of those and they're too heavy to carry, so I passed. By a little after 10am, I'd seen my fill, so I went back to the tram stop and waited. An old man approached me and made chit chat. I didn't really feel like talking so I didn't reciprocate with questions (always hard for me), but he persisted in asking me questions, so I finally warmed up to him and chatted more openly (though I didn't answere any question about where I was staying or going). He also didn't hear that well, so I kept my answers pretty simple. He seemed harmless and I guess just lonely. My tram came, so I got on and headed back. Along the way, I passed The Hard Wok Cafe, which made me grin, and a bar called Elephant and Wheelbarrow, which made me wonder if they came up with the name by thinking of two of the most unrelated things they could think of.

I got back to the hotel and told Walendo of my adventures. We did last minute packing and then went downstairs the check out. The bell hop got us a taxi and off we went to the airport. The driver was friendly and answered a few questions for us. We're guessing that we'll probably be getting some speeding tickets, since he said they're very strict about it and you don't know about it until you get them in the mail. Wish we'd known that earlier. He also told us that PTY stood for Proprietary, which we'd been wondering about. (Businesses often had PTY, LTD. after their names, and we couldn't figure out what PTY meant.)

At the airport, there was a long line for regular checkin but we got to go through the short first-class line because I'm Premier Executive. That and having seats with more room are the main advantages of United's program. (They don't give enough upgrades, in my opinion.) The airport experience was uneventful. Security was tighter, and they seemed to have a special setup for the flights to the US (our flight continues on to Los Angeles), which I guess is reassuring but it was mostly an annoyance. Oh, we also tried to get our GST back, but they have all these rules that make it so that you basically don't get anything back. You need a single receipt for over $300 (it can't be two receipts from the same shop), and it can't be just the credit card receipt, it has to be the shop's receipt, and we hadn't even gotten one in some cases. So even though we'd spent over $300 in some places, we didn't get any GST back. (We certainly spent well more than $300 overall, but for some reason it has to be $300 on a single receipt from one store.) I think they make those rules to make it seem like you get your money back — and to help stores sell over $300 worth of stuff — but probably few people really get anything back.

The flight from Melbourne to Aukland went fine. I spent most of it catching up with this journal. When we landed in Aukland, we went through customs and then made our way over to the domestic terminal so we can fly to Christchurch. We'll be staying on the South Island for the next 10 days. They have a free bus to the terminal, but since we had the cart, it seemed easier to walk — and it was nice to get the exercise. It was a little walk through the back area of the relatively small airport. We had plenty of time, so we got some money, bought a road map at the bookstore and waited. Now we're flying into Christchurch and it's time to shut down the computer.

...

We got into Christchurch, grabbed a taxi and went to our hotel, the Belmont Motor Inn, which we had reserved in advance. It was around 10:30pm by the time we got there, and the hotel looked closed up, but there was a note on the office door for "Mr. Isaacs" saying we should ring them. We did, and the guy came out and checked us in. The room was quite big. It had two rooms, one for a sitting area and kitchen and the other for a double and single bed and the bathroom, much more than we expected. The bed was saggy though, so Walendo didn't get that good a night's sleep. I guess I was tired enough to not notice. Tomorrow we get our rental car and drive down to Queenstown, a long driving day.

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