Auckland holiday (Day One)

Before I left on my holiday, I had visions of using my tablet every night to record the happenings each day. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out quite as I had hoped for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, I will begin at the start:

Day One

I’d have liked to get a good sleep before I travelled but that didn’t happen due to my late night bedtime that had been going for a while. I daresay I wouldn’t have slept well anyway, due to the excitement of the impending travel. I often wake up early in the morning but go back to sleep. On this occasion I did wake up kind of early but made myself stay awake with hopes of getting a bit of sleep on the plane.

The flight didn’t have allowance for any checked luggage so it was all about squishing as much into a carry on bag as possible. A backpack was found that was about the right dimensions but a smaller backup was also found just in case there was a problem. With the Scientist’s assistance (backed up by considerable travel experience), I managed to get clothes, a few toiletries and my tablet into the backpack. I opted to leave the keyboard at home due to its extra weight but it didn’t matter in the end since the carry on was never weighed.

Unlike most days, there was no battle to get Lego Lover to wake up in time to go to the airport. He was bright-eyed and ready to go from fairly early in the day. The Scientist made a couple of sandwiches for me to eat for dinner since my ticket also didn’t include a meal and those were carried in a separate bag from everything else. I said my goodbyes to Game Fanatic, who wasn’t keen on an airport visit, and then we were off with plenty of time to arrive early at the airport. There’s a fair bit of construction occurring on roads near there, so this could have been an issue. Fortunately it wasn’t and we arrived well before the three hour window when I was supposed to check in. The counter wasn’t even open when we arrived.

We went up to the viewing area instead, where Lego Lover had a good time watching flights land and take off. It was a pretty busy time of day so there was quite a bit to see. Once I was able to check in, I went back downstairs to find quite a bit of a line at the counter. But check-in was pretty easy since I just needed to get in line for online tickets and there weren’t many in that line. Check-in was very quick this time, particularly since I didn’t have baggage to check. We were back up to the viewing area again and stayed there until Lego Lover had had enough. This happened after the Air New Zealand flight from Auckland arrived, and coincided with a fairly quiet part of the day at the airport.

We shifted to the passenger area where I said my goodbyes to Lego Lover and the Scientist and passed through the magic door. :) Once inside I saw the international passenger departure area for the first time. Not that we do much flying but when we have, it’s always been on domestic flights to the east coast before embarking on the international leg of our flights. I must admit I wasn’t terribly impressed with what I saw. It was small and cramped and there was very limited seating, especially at the gate where I needed to be. To be fair, the airport is working on some major upgrades and it can be hoped this will make a difference to the quality of the departure area. I’d already eaten my sandwiches before entering this area but I was quite thirsty so a bottle of water was my main objective. Once I got that I walked around until a seat became available and then waited.

Boarding started fairly late and I think it was with about twenty minutes to departure that found myself boarding the plane. My seat was at the back of the plane, an aisle seat in the middle section of three. I was seated with an older Maori couple who were already settled in. The plane seemed mostly full except there was a woman with a window seat, a baby and three seats to herself. I don’t know if the baby actually had a seat or not but she had plenty of space during the flight. The rest of us were truly packed in like sardines. It wasn’t really that long before we were getting ready to depart and watching the Air New Zealand safety video, a pretty cute one with a theme heavily based on The Hobbit movie. I think I’d seen this online a while back but it was a bit different to see it in the proper context.

Take off went very smoothly and we were soon climbing quickly in altitude. It was still very much daylight at this point so I was able to glimpse the ground once in a while through one of the windows. It wasn’t long before we reached the flying altitude and we were on our way. The flight was due to take about six hours but from the beginning our ETA was about twenty minutes early. I guess flying conditions were pretty good.

The flight itself was fairly uneventful. A dinner was served for those with meals included and the couple next to me kept trying to share food with me. I guess they were worried I was going hungry but was just fine. They were a very nice couple although they didn’t speak very much English. I did find out from the husband they had been visiting a daughter in Perth and were now going home. Later on, they asked for some assistance filling out the NZ arrival card and then I realised I didn’t have any writing implements and asked if I could borrow their pen. Most of the time, though, was spent trying to get some sleep, unsuccessfully. I watched an old episode of Flight of the Conchords and tried to watch a couple other tv shows but found it difficult to focus. I think my early start left me feeling pretty tired at this point so the best I could do is try to rest and hope to get a bit of sleep.

Alas, sleep never came and we arrived in Auckland at quarter to six in the morning, local time. I was kind of expecting to see a bit of daylight by this time until I remembered NZ is on daylight savings time, unlike Perth. Still, there was a bright blue sign saying Auckland as we landed to provide some light. We had to sit on the tarmac for about fifteen minutes as we were so early that no gates were available. Finally we did pull into the gate and the seat belt sign went off. As usual, people scrambled to get their belongings. I just sat and waited since it was sure to be a long time until the back of the plane was able to leave. And honestly, I was in no hurry since I had many hours before I could check into my “hotel”.

Once I did get off, it all kind of felt like a dream. I don’t know whether this was because it was about 1am Perth time and I’d been up for a long time or it was the excitement of arriving in New Zealand, or perhaps some of both. By the time I left the plane, almost everyone else was off and I was soon passed by flight staff hurrying to collect belongings.  For the benefit of Lego Lover, I stopped to take photos of things of interest to him as I was leaving. It was actually pretty quiet through most of the journey through to immigration and customs. I put the camera away at immigration and waited my turn to show my passport. The agent there was quite friendly and wished me a good holiday. Customs was also pretty quick since I had nothing to declare and the only thing I had to mention were medications that I’d taken with me.

Soon I was in the lobby of the airport and in sight of the McDonald’s and a couple of mobile phone retail outlets. My first stop was there to get a sim to cover my time there. I think it’s rather cool we can do this now and are not tied to landline phones while travelling. Still it was rather steep to prepay for a month when I really only needed a week. I also got an add-on to allow me to phone home. I didn’t realise I had 90 minutes to Australia available until late in the stay so didn’t make the best use of that feature. Still, it was rather like a bit of insurance against emergencies.

My next stop was an ATM to get some cash on hand for any miscellaneous expenses I had. Then I went  outside the airport to find the shuttle into the CBD. Not terribly difficult to find but it wasn’t clear I needed to buy a ticket before I got to the shuttle. Anyway, the ticket office was next to the platform so it wasn’t difficult. I climbed aboard the shuttle with my backpack and sat down.

I will account for day two in another post.