Part 1 - The Flights

Spent a delightful month staying at my mum's before I left for NZ. Having my clothes washed, meals cooked, generally having most things done for me (an absolute breeze after living in my own place for 2 and a half years!) Thanks mum.

So we had a full car journey up to Heathrow on 3rd June with me, my brother Oscar, mum, dad and dad's wife Kim all in the Astra on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year in Wales so far (typical!). Thankfully the air con made it much more bearable.

We got to Heathrow at 6pm and I was flying at 10:05pm (dad doesn't like tardiness!) so I checked in - and my 1st obstacle was presented to me. No, not my luggage weight I can hear you all thinking (although I'll come to that later) but I was allocated a jobsworth on the check-in desk. A jobsworth that looked EXACTLY like David Walliams' character in Little Britain - you know the one..."computer says no". He even sat like David Walliams' character at the check-in desk! Maybe that's who he based himself on - if so, he was doing a very good job. He explained very slowly that I needed a return ticket to go to New Zealand to which I kindly pointed out that I had a visa in my passport that stated very clearly that I don't (1 nil to me!) Instead of looking through my passport for said visa he pushed my passport back to me and said 'show me'. What a complete eejit...so I found the page and gave it back to him. He leisurely read the 4 lines on it and then said 'I'll have to check with my manager, it says on my screen that you have to have a return ticket for New Zealand'. So he came out from behind his desk, walked past me and off to see his manager. I wanted to ask him who he thought wrote the 'message on the screen' (answer: NZ immigration) and who he thought had put the visa in my passport (answer: NZ immigration) but I didn't...I let him go. He came back and of course all was fine - although that didn't stop my heart skipping along at the thought that I might not actually be going after all.

Anyway, I finally checked in and we went up to departures for a bite to eat and the obligatory drink at the bar - not sure why but whenever you are flying anywhere (even if it's only Ireland!) you HAVE to have a drink at the bar - it could be 4 in the morning (and face it, with Ryanair it usually is!) and you have a drink - mmm, alcohol and toothpaste...a heady mix ;-)

Then at about 9pm came the dreaded walk through customs. Not dreaded because I was carrying anything naughty - dreaded because that's when I cry. I only had to think of walking through customs for my tear ducts to wake up. So, the tears flowed as I said goodbye to family - I won't dwell on it or I'll well up again and so will you. So I walked through the zig zaggy walkway to the scanners. Strangely I took my laptop out of my bag and put it in a box thing then when I got through the other end (after setting off the alarms, as I always do - I'm sure I have a plate in my head that no one's ever told me about) my laptop was already through. But someone else was picking it up and stuffing it into their bag...after momentary panic I noticed another laptop coming through the scanner - exactly the same as the one that had just come through. Mine! So glad I didn't cause a fracas. So that was me...gone!

First flight from Heathrow to Singapore was on the A380 Airbus...a double decker. I slept (albeit fitfully) for 8 hours and listened to some music the rest of the time. Food was gorgeous - Salmon for dinner & hash browns with cod(!) for breakfast. Novelty for me but that's what you get for requesting seafood! Had 2 glasses of red as well...all complimentary - thank you Singapore Airlines (I wouldn't recommend the white wine unless you like very sweet German wine...I'm thinking Riesling). Singapore airport is quite posh, it was very quiet and I was surprised to see they had indoor smoking areas (I guess they'd have to if you can't leave the airport? Not sure how this works in the UK - then again, I'm not a smoker so I don't need to).

The 2nd flight from Singapore to Christchurch was on a Boeing 777 - again a big plane but only 1 deck this time. Food again - absolutely delish, I had haddock for dinner and then the most beautiful smoked salmon omelette I have ever tasted for breakfast (bit more normal breakfast dish!) Gorgeous. Only slept for about 1.5 hours max on that flight though so I watched 3 films: Unknown was the name of the first film, not - as I thought - a film they didn't know the name of (it took me about an hour to realise this WAS the name). It was good. Then I watched 'Just Go With It' - again, a good chick flick. Then I missed the end of the 3rd film - another good one - The Adjustment Bureau because we were landing so now I'll have to rent it out. Although having been in NZ for almost 2 weeks I can safely say I won't be able to rent it out for about 10 years as the video shop we went in the other day was exactly that, a VIDEO shop!

Heathrow-Gate!) but he was lovely to me and said it all looks good and let me through (phew!) Had some time to kill at Christchurch so I had a coffee and wandered the limited shops for a bit then checked in 3 hours before my flight.

And herein lies the luggage weight issue.

The 3rd flight from Christchurch to Invercargill was a completely new experience for me. You go out of the airport and into another entrance for domestic flights. Then you scan your own passport on these machines and it prints your boarding pass - easy enough. You weigh your own bag and put it on the conveyor (there are people there to help if you get stuck!) and my bag was 26.9kgs...uh oh - 23kg maximum. So after some jigging about and cramming the OH's (Other Half's) HUGE coat into my hand luggage (I don't know how I did it) I got it down to 23.4kgs and popped it on the belt. I kept hearing people's names over the tannoy being asked to go back to the check-in area and I assume it was because they'd put luggage in that was way overweight. It might not have been but I was waiting for my name to come up, it didn't thankfully!

Then you go up the escalator to the shops (you don't have to have a ticket to get to this bit) and then you can walk to the gates (again, no checking of tickets for the gates I was going towards). I headed towards 'Gates 43 - 50' (I was looking for gate 50). Got to the departure area at the gates and there were no hand luggage scanners at all. There was just a little ticket scanner that you scanned on the way to your plane once your flight was called. I was looking around for the sign showing you where gate 50 was and I noticed the sign that said 'Gates 43 - 49 this way'. No gate 50. Then I looked up and it said 'Gate 50' with an arrow that pointed outside! To get on the plane they just scan your ticket and you walk outside and onto your plane. So nobody checked that I was the person who was on my passport AT ALL. I could have been anyone - could have had litres of liquid in my hand luggage and no one checked it. A girl who lives in Wellington started talking to me in the departure lounge and I said 'there's no security? How strange' to which her response was 'well it's only a small plane to Invercargill'...made me laugh almost out loud. As if the security risk depends on the size of the plane. I guess they must know what they're doing!

So I got on the 50 seater 'link' plane (which had propellers) and it was actually really smooth once you were up, bit of a swaying take off. It's all very cute - they give you a cup of tea and biscuit when you're up and before you know it you're back down again. Ironically it was the smoothest landing out of all 3 flights! Then you walk out onto the tarmac and into this tiny room (the airport). The OH was there waiting for me - literally just inside the door. It really is the smallest airport I have ever seen. It was such a joy to see him after a month apart and he instantly made me feel at home.

On the way back home to Riverton the OH took me on a little tour of Invercargill - our nearest city. It was a lot to take in and I started to mentally panic about how I was going to remember it all and find my way around but I had been flying for 2 days so this momentary panic can be excused!
Sunday evening I could hardly keep my eyes open after 5pm so the OH went out and got us a pizza from the pub up the road and we had that then I crashed out again. It was a recurring theme for the first 4 nights at least that I couldn't keep my eyes open past 6pm without some serious effort so I had a few early nights and it seemed to calm down.

So after all that I am here - in New Zealand ready to start the next chapter...