Day 2: Sydney
Nau mai
Inanahi, i whakatangi mātou ki Sydney, Ahitereiria
It was a good omen that began the day’s traveling. Jon found an entire column of unsecured smartecartes® and we helped ourselves to four, allowing us to deposit $16AUD straight into our savings account. We had a 9am flight so were at the the airport at 7am to give ourselves time to check all our oversized luggage.
I think we are hauling around fifteen pieces of baggage at the moment so check-in takes a wee while.
My parakuihi was called a Mighty McMuffin® and consisted of Parāoa, sliced, filled with Pēkana, tōtiti and Hēki.
Our waka rererangi was a Virgin Airlines Boeing 737 800, a fine craft that made short work of the 700km flight to Sydney. An even finer craft awaited us at Europcar rentals, a black Kia Carnival, winner of the Drive Car of the Year 2022. This vehicle features ‘athletic body lines’, and a ‘strong tiger-nose grille’, but its greatest feature is the ability swallow four pelican cases, three guitars, three pedal boards, and inflatable backdrop, all our suitcases, and still fit five human passengers.
The Kia Carnival.
The traditional owners and custodians of the place we know as Sydney are the Gadigal People, although there are a large number of clans of the Sydney Metropolitan Area that were referred to collectively as the Eora Nation by early European settlers. There isn’t an Aboriginal name for the city of Sydney, though recently the Australian Government adopted the name Warrane, taken from the name the Eora People called Sydney Cove.
It was only a four minute drive to our hotel where we managed an early check-in and then the promo ‘A team’ headed to ABC studios for an interview. The rest of us headed into the city an hour later. Our venue was Metro Theatre, on George Street, right in the bustling heart of Sydney. There was no time to take it all in however as the latter half of the afternoon was spent preparing for the show and then the evening turned into a dinner date with Hans Pucket.
Safely crossing the road to get to Metro Theatre.
Getting to watch Hans Pucket once is a treat. Seeing them two days in a row is a special treat and while the icing on the cake of our album release day was a literal print of our album cover, Hans Pucket’s set was the eggs, the butter, and the chocolate inside the cake.
Luckily the venue didn’t turn into a club at the end of our show, but life is filled with compromises and last night’s one meant that we did have to wheel our gear through the pumping dance floor of an adjoining night club to get to the elevator.
At the end of the night there was a short celebration to mark our album release but we had a very early flight the next morning and had to head back to our hotel to our airport themed room which provided a few hours of comfort before the early wake up.
The Arrival Board themed bathroom screen in our room.
Ka kite āno.