When I initially booked this trip I was suppsoed to fly back to India from Australia - partially because initially I had booked a round trip from Bangalore, and I was supposed to bring back some leftover luggage. This resulted in a series of circumstances that weren't ideal - basically I would have a 10:55am departure today (Sunday) from Sydney, to get about 7 hours in Bangalore (probably enough to time to reach my Uncle's get like an hour and then head right back...) to then reach home around 7pm on Monday. The worst part of all of that migth have been the 10:55am start, meaning I would need to wake up aroudn 8am, hampering my last weekend night.
So, after a lot of milling, I rerouted to a better (to me) option to fly out of Sydney three hours later (crucial to making the last night OK), and going to Auckland, then flying the next day from Auckland to San Francisco to Newark. I would both get a bit more time to enjoy Sydney, and see a new country, and get roughly 18 hours in Auckland from landing at 6pm one day and leaving at 2pm the next day.
Now, it's not like I did anything today in Sydney, but was able to sleep in a bit, leave my AirBNB at 10:30 and head straight to the airport. The marathon had closed a bunch of roads around the city, but luckily not where my AirBNB was and other than a first little delay, I was still able to get to the airport by 11:15, and mill around the airport, get some duty free and tim tams before taking the quick 2h30m flight from Sydney to Auckland.
Auckland is two hours further ahead, so we still landed around 6pm, and by 7pm I was at the JW Marriott on a super windy, dreary Auckland night. Granted, Auckland is further South than Australia and more remote and colder and it is still very much winter. I wasn't surprised of this weather - part of the reason why the flight back from Auckland was way cheaper than back from Sydney itself (even including the added flight to Auckland), but I had my plans for the night that didn't involve needing great weather.
Dinner was at Ahi, one of the few top restaurants in Auckland open on a Sunday. It is located in a corner of a semi-open-air mall at the waterfront area, which did look bright and nice, though muted with teh darkness and remnants of rain earlier in the day. Dinner itself at Ahi was excellent - taking something of their version of a banquet menu entitled "A New Zealand Food Story", which was eight courses and absolutely fantastic. Nothing insane or overly tweezery but just really well curated food.
From there, I had limited options as again it is a winter Sunday night, but there were two cocktail spots I had earmarked that are dependably open until 2am and 3am respectively. The first was about a 10min uber ride away from the CBD area (where the JW and restaurant were), named Deadshot. It takes inspiration from New York style cocktail bars without a menu but where you just tell teh bartender a bit about what you like and they'll concoct something. It worked perfectly well here, with the bartender Justin, who migrated from Oregon, giving me some great things. It was a quiet night for them, even for a Sunday, but led me to having a pretty active conversation with Justin and a couple other patrons.
In the middle, he let me know that the other place I had on my list - Caretaker - to be owned by the same people, and with teh same concept. Justin let me know that Caretaker likely would be more crowded (granted, hard to not be) - and after I headed over, I realized it was. It has more of a speakeasy type feel than Deadshot (which was more dive bar setup) but again same general routine. Had some really excellent versions of old fashioned, boulvardiers, and others - a really nice time. If this was the last main thing I did on my trip, it was well worth it, and more than anything justified nicely my decision to reroute and get an evening in Auckland.
Day 20 - The Long Road Home
I had planned to walk around Auckland downtown in the morning, needing to leave the hotel for the airport only around 11:30, but the weather did not cooperate. If there was going to be a day where weather ruled out the planend activities, this was the day for it. New Zealand may be the trip I want to take more than any other at this point - I will go back, I will get to enjoy the city in more detail. No need to spoil future greatness for a few hours.
At the airport, I spent a good 45 minutes at the quite nice Air New Zealand lounge, which had some really nice food and some world class coffee baristas. It was a nice leadup to the flight, getting to fly Polaris back to San Francisco (and then Premium Economy back to Newark). The flight to
