Auckland, New Zealand

Mar 27 - 28, 2001

 Our Travel Experience

More Photos

Ratings

Tourist Info

 
 

Our Travel Experience

We were originally scheduled for an overnight layover between flights in Auckland. We arrived from Fiji at just after midnight and were to be gone by 8:30am the next morning. However, the back of Seth's left leg starting hurting just before landing. The pain did not go away and he noticed that his calf at the back of his knee was swollen. Since we'd read articles on blood clots associated with flying recently, we went to the first aid room in the airport when we landed.

We were whisked to a hospital via ambulance and then the waiting started. First we slept in the Emergency Room while we waited for the results of a blood test. Since the blood test came back negative, Seth was going to have an ultrasound in the morning. We were transferred to a "short stay" area at about 5am. Seth was the lucky one, he got to sleep in the bed. Tara could stay with Seth, but she only had chairs to sleep on. Two metal, padded, sturdy chairs in the Emergency Room made for a pretty comfortable bed, but the single, plastic chair in the short stay area was very hard to sleep on. At least Seth gave Tara a bit of the bed to lay her head on.

In the morning, we went for Seth's ultrasound. It was kool to see the blood flowing through his veins. Thankfully, the doctors found no stopped blood, only flowing blood. So, he was released from the hospital. The actual release procedure took a while. Tara went to deal with our health insurance, rebook our flight to Tokyo, find our luggage and call our friends in Tokyo to let them know we'd be a day late. Seth stayed in bed and the releasing doctor came by and visited him.

In the end, we were released just before noon. A friendly nurse gave us a reccomendation on where to stay and we headed out just before lunch. However, the hospital did offer us lunch if we wanted to stay. Everyone at the hospital was very, very friendly.

We liked the motel the one nurse had suggested. It was in a neighborhood with some small shops. Tara even walked to the not-so-nearby mall since it was warm and sunny outside while Seth napped.

For dinner, we took a walk but didn't find any restaurant where we desperately wanted to eat. Therefore, we went back to our motel and ordered a pizza. NZ$15.75. (about US$8) We thought that if we'd been in Tokyo as was originally planned we would have been spending US$80 on pizza! It was fun to sit in the common area and read all the magazines that were available. We also had a look though the motel's used book section and chose one for the road. Tara enjoyed the watermelon that they'd purchased on their evening walk.

In the morning we were very happy to have a smooth check-in time at the airport. Our luggage was located and "up-lifted" onto the plane, we didn't have to pay departure tax since we were originally meant to leave the day before and Tara's coral that had had to be surrendered when we entered the country was returned to us.

Overall, a very pleasant, unexpected stay - especially since the doctor's didn't find a blood clot in Seth's leg.
 
 
Category Rating Comments
Overall Experience
Ease of Journey
Accommodation  
Activities
Coolness  
 
Tourist Info

Middlemore Hospital, South Auckland

Traveler's Budget Inn, Taipaupau

Air New Zealand 33, 28 March
56J and 56H (switched to row 57 to get two seats to ourselves)