Holiday: Day 7 – Hello New Zealand!

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05.00am: Morning loyal Reader! We’re almost in New Zealand! 🙃. It was another night where I didn’t sleep well – maybe I should try reading my Blog! 😉

But at least getting up at ‘silly o’clock’ meant we had plenty of time to get packed – as we’re leaving Australia today.

Day 7 – Where are we?
(Tuesday, 5th November)

07.30am: We’re now all packed and off to Brisbane Airport on the next big leg of our adventure. Today’s the day when we actually travel to New Zealand – and it’ll be our very first visit! 😁😁

So, it was the familiar short walk to Roma Street Station for the 25-minute rail journey to the Airport – so we still had stacks of time. The train was on time and not particularly busy (and the fare was only 11AUD each – another subsidy, courtesy of the Oz Government).

So far, so good! But where it all went a bit pear-shaped was when we eventually arrived at Brisbane Airport and began the check-in process. The current trend to replace humans with machines for getting rid of suitcases and printing boarding cards went horribly wrong where the machine insisted that despite TWO cases, we were only allowed a SINGLE baggage label. Clearly, the airport was understaffed, but we eventually found a human and were given the right quota of labels before queuing for another 40 minutes to ‘drop’ the suitcases.

Security didn’t inspire much confidence, either. Again, they were clearly understaffed for the number of travellers they were attempting to process – and that added another 45 minutes to the experience! 😲. For a man who’s had no sleep for the past three days, this was making the whole ‘travel thing’ feel much worse than it probably was! 🤪🤪

We eventually made it airside, and after a quick nibble, headed for the Gate (at least the service there was spot on!). Damn! Just when I thought things were improving, they boarded us late after a lot of faffing around trying to organise the queuing system!

We should have boarded at 11.10am, but we eventually got through the Gate closer to 11.45 – no reason really, apart from a lot of staff standing around doing nothing and shuffling us around to form variations on the queue position. In happier news, the relatively short 1436-mile flight got us to Auckland just after 5.35pm instead of the promised 5.15pm local time, but at least our Pilot had made up some of the time. By the way, great service from Air New Zealand’s Cabin Crew and good to see plenty of ‘mature’ staff employed.

Yoiks, it felt like we’d spent all day travelling! 🤪. Actually, we had! 😫

On landing in Auckland where the clocks jumped forward another 3 hours compared with Brisbane, in turn, meaning it was still light outside. However, after the 30-something temperature of Brisbane, we were now feeling the big temperature change! It was now ‘only’ about 16℃! 🥶🥶

5.45pm: Yay! We made it! It’s Tuesday, 5th November, 2024 at 5.45pm and we’re officially in New Zealand! 👍👍. All credit to the immigration side of the process as we were through in no time – and yet again, the eGates worked perfectly! Next job? As we exited the Airport, we were on the hunt for a Taxi. Easy-peasy, and we were soon being whisked in air-conditioned luxury along the very smooth four-lane road out of the Airport heading for the Ramada Hotel.

TODAY’S TRIVIA: Auckland was first settled in about 1350 by Maori people who called it
Tamaki Makau Rau, which means “land of a thousand lovers”

Again, our room is more of an Apartment complete with washing-machine, dishwasher… and a small kitchen too!

7.14pm: Phew! After just over 14 hours of travelling, we finally made it to New Zealand. We’re here for just two nights, but we aim to make the most of it.

9.27pm: That’s us signing-off for today. Tomorrow, we’re going on an Auckland’s Bus Tour or a Harbour Tour to get a feel for the area!

Sleep well!💤💤. Perhaps, tonight, I will too! 🤔