I met my friends at Heathrow Terminal 4. We only had a short while to wait before check-in commenced for our Qantas flight. Once that was done we had dinner, hung around the departure lounge for a while then boarded our plane. After eleven and a half hours in the air we had a ninety minute stop in Bangkok for refuelling. Once back on the plane we set off on a nine hour flight to Sydney. We must have caught a good following wind as we crossed the central Australian desert because our ground speed got up to 740mph!
By the time of our arrival in Sydney we had realised that we hadn’t been checked through to Auckland. We were worried that we wouldn't have enough time to get our baggage off the carousel, clear customs and get ourselves onto the onward flight. Fortunately there was a Qantas chap at the exit of the plane so we asked him what we should do. He suggested that we see if the “transfer desk” could help. They were very good; arranging for someone to rescue our baggage and getting us onto the flight to New Zealand.
That gave us a bit of time in Sydney airport. We found that there were free showers for transit passengers so I felt a little bit more human. The flight to Auckland was uneventful except for a fairly heavy landing. It was very windy though so I guess the pilot had an excuse!
New Zealand has a very strict policy on bringing foodstuffs into the county. Their economy is still dependant on agriculture and they don’t want tourists bringing in diseases. All incoming baggage is X-Rayed so it was safest to declare everything to customs. They didn’t seem too interested in my chewing gum though!
Jason’s family met us at the airport and took us to our hotel. For the first couple of nights we stayed at the Regency Hyatt which is handily located on the edge of the city centre. My room was located in the older, 1970’s wing of the hotel and was looking a bit tired and dated. This was the view looking out of my room towards the centre of the city.
The ivy clad building in the foreground is part of the University of Auckland. The flag shows how windy it was!
After unpacking it was time for dinner. After a quick wander through the city centre we found a reasonable restaurant. We were all feeling very tired after the flight so we didn’t linger over dinner before heading back to the hotel.