Best Laid Plans

March 1, 2008. Ali and I finally decided to stop talking and start charging our New Zealand and Australia itineraries. We realized that booking multi-city flights to destinations around the world one week before the intended departure date may not have been the most wallet-friendly strategy. I guess the last-minute discount flight market wasn’t created for impetuous, ex-investment bankers who are willing to pay out the ass to escape from our over-worked, under-appreciated, emotionally-unavailable lives in Manhattan [Matt – Speak for yourselves. I had trading hours and a double-swinging door for love sweet love]. We decided to meet up in Christchurch on March 18th and tour the South Island first. I have to admit, my geographic knowledge of New Zealand is somewhat non-existent. Since New Zealand is not the hub of pulsating financial activity, nor does it have a high-browed institute of higher learning, our paths never really crossed. So today, I introduced myself to the island-nation through Google Maps. Charmed, I assure you.

Ali was busy packing and cursing the obscene amount of taxes she has to pay this year [Ali – Why are tax laws never unfair in the favor of the over-privileged?]. So I began sifting through travel blogs and articles for places to see and things to do near Queenstown (South Island) and Auckland (North Island). Let me assure you, prose will never run out of crap so long as every Joe Douche is allowed to pen "travel-o-blogs" (gag me). What annoys me more than the banal rambling of their minute-to-minute movements are the ridiculous pictures. You spend the last three incessantly boring paragraphs droning on about the “soul changing beauty of the waterfall” so why the eff is your huge-ass head and your girlfriend’s fugly-ass head blocking the entire natural wonder in the only picture you post?! Unless you were the creator of said soul changing beauty of a waterfall, no one wants to look at a grinning headshot of the two of you and your faux-kleys secured by those ridiculous day-glo leashes. (Seriously? Will you really be sad to lose those shades of ugly?) Bitch being said, there are some pretty good bloggers out there who manage to not only capture the essence of each destination but frame it with perspective (shout outs to Jackie and Rose!).

So with our itinerary arduously devised over bottles of wine [Ali – Research!], here we begin our attempt to document our travels. We have no lofty aspirations to “discover” ourselves along the way. The discovered traveler never finds what he lacks most, a sense of humor, and is typically in dire need of a serious bitch-slap. So I hope to chronicle our travels a bit of elegance, a dash of insight and a load of levity.

Here's our “Oops, We Can’t Drive from Sydney to Cairns in 10 Days Itinerary”
[Ali – You’re the one making hot love to Google Maps, you should have figured it out!]

March 5th or 6th: Ali leaves for New Zealand (where’s regular old Zealand?)
March 6th to 18th: Ali wanders about New Zealand. Does not involve me so not much here to say.
March 16th: Matt and I leave for New Zealand
March 18th: Oh My Lord & Taylor, we don’t get to Christchurch until 2 days later!
March 18th to 24th: South Island (avoiding all tools on the Lord of the Rings Tours)
March 24th to 26th: North Island
March 26th: Depart for Brisbane
March 26th to 28th: Byron’s Bay
March 30th to 31st: Fraser Island
April 1st to 3rd: Airlie Beach
April 4th to 6th: Cairns (jellyfish, sting rays and sharks, oh my!)
April 7th to 9th: Sydney: Eat, drink and be merry in Outlaw City. (Soap on a rope for you Matt)
April 9th to 28th: Ali traipses around in Australia.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu!
Connie