Auckland NZ to Yosemite California

I flew out of Auckland on QANTAS on Sunday 28 May 2000. It was an overnight flight which suited me fine as I had been putting in long days (and hence short nights) trying to get everything done before I left. Once on board I took a sleeping pill, put in my ear plugs, put on my eye mask and I was history. Woke up an hour out of Los Angeles in time to retrieve my breakfast (a delightful fruit platter).

The fellow at immigration was intrigued as to why I would have moved to NZ from a great place like Canada. The weather was my response and since he was originally from Philidalphia he could empathise. Memories of shivering while waiting for the bus to go to school in the mornings ... Many great things about the Canada but the harsh winters tend to blurr them.

Had great fun retrieving my bicycle. Along with some surfies we were directed to the wrong location but after an h we found out kit. The baggage collection was quite a shambles an the QANTAS crew were still waiting for theirs. Made me feel a little better.

I managed to wheel my big bike box over to the United terminal where I checked in for my flight to San Francisco. They charged me $20 for the bike which I thought was a bit cheeky since it had come from NZ for free. I had bought my ticket over the Internet and was pleasantly surprised that it was there waiting for me.

As soon as I had checked it in I met Harry Trigg from Trigg Industries. He had been looking for me and spotted the bike box first. Figured it must be me. We went to a restaurant in the centre of the airport and had a meeting for several hours to discuss opportunites for him marketing ROMDAS in North America.  We now have 108 systems in 34 countries, but nothing in USA or Canada so there is great potential there.

Caught my flight to Oakland where I was met by David and Katherine Brown. David is from Auckland and they met when him and I did the Mt.Everest base camp trek in '96. As Kat remined me, I was responsible for introducing them as she had injured her elbow in a fall and I said that my mate David was an ambulance officer who wouldn't mind helping with the dressing. They were married in AKL in '97 while I was in Gujarat so it was good to see them again.

They live in Fairfax which is about 30 mins N of San Francisco. It is a lovely, hilly area and on Monday morning David and I went for a brief walk up the hill to survey the land. Quite beautiful and you wouldn't believe that you were so close to the city. Prices for houses are quite silly as there are a lot of software companies in the area as well as Lucas Studios of Star War fame. David read from the paper that the price of a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house was $USD 1 million! I reminded him of the time a few yeas ago that the first house in NZ to ever sell for $NZ 1 million (now $USD 450,000) made the front page of the newspaper.

It was great to see them again and I had a delightful visit. Since Monday was a holiday they had the day off and David and I caught up. He took me for a drive to a place they looked at buying a section (absolutely beautiful with lots of huge pines) and we cycled down to the local bike shop where I tried unsuccefully to get advice on cycling to Yosemite but managed to buy a 3 L water sack for the desert crossings. We had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant (vegetarian Fajitas) and then went to a film.