Yesterday I exceeded my expectations and managed to keep myself awake until 18:45 Melbourne time, meaning I woke up very early this morning, but at least it felt like morning! A leisurely breakfast of cereal-from-a-mug was welcome and whilst I ate I made the unfortunate decision to watch the Victoria equivalent of "Daybreak". This was a truly awful programme, but more disturbing was the story of three Quantas planes having had to make emergency landings in the last 24 hours. One of these had dropped 20,000 feet in just a few minutes - I bet there were some painful ears on that one!
With this in mind we packed and got back on the Skybus ready for our Quantas/Jetstar flight. The airport procedures seemed incredibly stringent, with outgoing immigration cards and passport checks required. I'd sort of forgotten by this point that short-haul flights existed and hence once through the checks there was an immediate requirement to source food - which we obtained from 'Hungry Jacks', the local equivalent of Burger King.
The flight itself was an Easyjet-style experience of three and a half hours, and before long we were making a (non-emergemcy) landing in Auckland. Again, immigration procedures were stringent and it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get through. Thankfully we had been warned not to take fresh food and to clean our boots thoroughly - but waiting half an hour for someone to glance at your boots and say "they're fine" was slightly annoying.
Also annoying was that our prearranged taxi man was not there! We had to literally "dial-a-cab" to locate him, and once in the car he asked us whether we knew the hour-long route, or was he going to have to use GPS? GPS of course, we said, and so he promptly handed over his phone for us to get it set-up!
Jane's house, when we eventually arrived (turns out even GPS wasn't enough) was very welcome. It is gorgeous blue/grey split level building, boasting a terrace with a great view of the green valley. It's hillier than I had anticipated here - due to the volcanic history, and I am looking forward to exploring the area.
With this in mind we packed and got back on the Skybus ready for our Quantas/Jetstar flight. The airport procedures seemed incredibly stringent, with outgoing immigration cards and passport checks required. I'd sort of forgotten by this point that short-haul flights existed and hence once through the checks there was an immediate requirement to source food - which we obtained from 'Hungry Jacks', the local equivalent of Burger King.
The flight itself was an Easyjet-style experience of three and a half hours, and before long we were making a (non-emergemcy) landing in Auckland. Again, immigration procedures were stringent and it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get through. Thankfully we had been warned not to take fresh food and to clean our boots thoroughly - but waiting half an hour for someone to glance at your boots and say "they're fine" was slightly annoying.
Also annoying was that our prearranged taxi man was not there! We had to literally "dial-a-cab" to locate him, and once in the car he asked us whether we knew the hour-long route, or was he going to have to use GPS? GPS of course, we said, and so he promptly handed over his phone for us to get it set-up!
Jane's house, when we eventually arrived (turns out even GPS wasn't enough) was very welcome. It is gorgeous blue/grey split level building, boasting a terrace with a great view of the green valley. It's hillier than I had anticipated here - due to the volcanic history, and I am looking forward to exploring the area.
No comments:
Post a Comment