So we have arrived in New Zealand. Last time we posted was on our last night in America. We left the following morning and drove down the coast to the airport, arriving there mid-afternoon, where we said goodbye to our car.
We spent around 6 hours in the airport (as we were very early, and then our flight was delayed by 1.5 hours) although it passed by quickly enough. The terminal we were in was pretty rubbish – hardly any shops or places to eat (we were expecting another Heathrow!). Turns out they had to fix the engine on the plane which was why were were delayed. The pilot had a very upsetting habit of sharing everything with us – so we knew exactly what was going wrong and what could go wrong! Thankfully nothing did though!
The overnight flight was pretty uneventful. 12 hours of sleeping, eating and watching films. We were lucky enough though to have a row of 4 seats to ourselves so we had plenty of room to stretch out and sleep!
We arrived in Auckland at 7.30am – Friday (we lost a day in the process, and are now 12 hours ahead of home rather than 8 hours behind. It hurts my head to think about it!!) and the immigration process was infinitely less slow and painful than it was in New York. We did however have to declare our walking boots and have them checked, as we had ‘been in a forest’ (we had to tick that box on a list of unacceptable activities!)
The exciting news is that I can spend 6 months here. Jonny can only spend 3! (I think we’ll be ok with 6 weeks though). It’s all because I have a decent, British passport, while Jonny has an inferior Irish one! (And we’re now in a country that has the union jack as part of the flag!)
We are currently sitting in the Central Backpackers Hostel in Auckland waiting for our room to be cleaned. All we have established so far is that we are not, nor are ever likely to be backpackers! We look very out of place wheeling our suitcases around! And we’re not wearing flip flops!
Also…my impressions of New Zealand so far are that it is wet and grey and looks remarkably like NI. Hopefully after some sleep I’ll feel a bit better about the whole thing!
So the rest of the day is going to be filling ourselves with caffeine and trying to stay awake until tonight! Which for us, is actually last night?!?!?!?
Tomorrow, the real fun will begin when we pick up our spaceship! We are back to driving on the proper side of the road and we’re now ‘going it alone’ without the help of the sat nav! So it could all be very interesting!!!
(No photos yet, but not sure anyone would want to see what we look like at the minute anyway! It’s not good!!!)
Jill
