On Our Way Again

Tuesday 19 December

Part One

We were late up again this morning – no pressure to do anything, but be ready to leave by 16,00. We had to vacate our room by 11.00, so we packed our cases and went out for a late breakfast. We had seen a small café offering cereals and pancakes as early morning fare on our travels around town yesterday, but by the time we arrived they were on to the lunch menu! But the food was tasty anyway, and Colin had an enormous hot chocolate, with heaps of cream on the top with marshmallows round the saucer and two chocolate flakes for dunking – his idea of how a hot chocolate should be – no wonder we are putting on weight.

From here we wandered back to the Square again. Market stalls selling jewellery or clothes had been set up to one side, and different groups were performing all around – a rock band was drowning out many of the other musicians - a man dressed as an Elizabethan bard was telling ghoulish stories to a group of students, another girl was dancing Irish jigs, as well as the café vendors and those preaching the gospel. A group of primary school children – about 5 years old or less – emerged from the Cathedral in crocodile fashion, watched proudly by many parents, as they marched in their maroon blazers and boaters, back to school – after their Christmas carol service we presume. At least Christchurch has woken up this morning.

We found an outdoor adventure shop selling glue to mend my kagool – so old now, the sleeve seams are parting – and wandered around more shops and over the old iron bridges to look at the gardens along the river – the Avon – which winds its way through the city. Christchurch is a really pretty city – in the centre at least. There are lots of green areas, and trees line most of the streets and, of course the trams clang along their route regularly. There was a series of eight large metal containers (the shipping sort), that had been placed at different stops around the tram route, telling the Christmas story, very simply, with models depicting the scenes and chalk writing on the walls. So simple, but very effective. We became people watchers at the pavement café in the lee of the Cathedral, until it was time to reclaim our luggage and wait for our transport to the airport.

Together with two more of our group, we were collected by a very garrulous minibus driver who talked about everything from cricket, to politics, to the history of Christchurch and back to sport and netball, rugby, rowing and motor cycle racing (all of which New Zealand are good at!). All in half an hour. We made our way to the Domestic terminal and the inevitable security check. Both Colin and I had our considerable amount of hand luggage searched – mine because I had my electric toothbrush in my backpack – the inspector said he thought it was a weapon! – and Colin because he had packed his water bottle amongst his belongings - they didn’t tell us what they thought that might have been - a grenade, a bomb?. Having pulled all our bags apart and laid bare all my chemisty bits, we were left to repack, luckily not having anything confiscated. Reaching the boarding gate, it was not long before we were called to board for our trip to Auckland. We were offered tea, coffee or water on the flight, accompanied by a shortcake biscuit – Air New Zealand definitely don’t go overboard with their food – and we were left wondering what we would get on the next flight tonight.

Landing in Auckland, we were not surprised it was raining again – as I think I mentioned before, it seems to rain most days here – and it seemed very cold, less than 20 degrees – even though nearer the equator than Christchurch, where the temperature had been over 30 degrees when we left, with blue cloudless skies and lots of sun. It was very confusing to find the route from the Domestic to the International section of the airport – we were following signs which just stopped in the middle of a corridor, and no matter where we looked we couldn’t find our way. In the end a man showed us down more corridors and outside to a bus stop, where the buses ran every 20 minutes to take passengers across to the International side – it’s a good job we weren’t in a hurry – even the bus was very slow when it came, detouring to hotels, and cargo points along the way. We had been given our boarding passes at Christchurch for this part of the journey, so we didn’t have to queue – which was lucky as all the computers had recently gone down, and they were announcing that there would be a delay of at least a quarter of an hour before they could restart processing boarding cards! We found the desk to pay our Airport tax (NS$25 each), which in normal circumstances would have been extremely busy, but we were the only ones there and progressed through security – easily this time - and found ourselves in an empty hall to spend a couple of hours waiting for the plane. Knowing that Air New Zealand’s food is poor, we visited Burger King for a quick snack (catching up on our junk food intake), before blogging for an hour.

We noticed that there lots of Polynesian type people were accumulating around us, all wearing a Tshirt bearing the slogan – “Rarotogan Camp 2006-2007” - from small children who could hardy walk to ninety-plus year olds, several of whom were in wheel chairs. When the flight was called and we made our way down to the boarding gate, the waiting area was teeming with these people – a couple of hundred at least, including lots of children with vast energy reserves, all charging around and shouting, screaming - or crying! This wasn’t going to be a quiet flight.

They started boarding over an hour before the flight – someone had done their homework and realized that all these people would take some time to get on the plane (we later found out that no one and nothing makes a Polynesian person rush) – and they were right. We were in row 8, out of only 40, but we were not called to get on the plane until about ten minutes before take off. Once on board it all seemed a little calmer, and by the time we were flying many of the children must have been asleep as it was reasonably quiet. The film on board was once again “Flicka” – special for December with New Zealand Air! – a chidren’s tale of a girl and a mustang horse - but it passed a couple of hours, during which time they served the food! – hot beef pie and cold pasta salad (my salad ingredients were missing) and a tub of water – not very pleasant at all. But I did have a glass of champagne – well fizzy anyway - so it wasn’t all bad. I definitely wouldn’t recommend traveling with New Zealand airways to anyone – notwithstanding the food stakes – the planes themselves are old, noisy (I thought we were losing a wing on this flight at one time, with all the noise coming from that direction), and the seats have lost any springs they might have had years ago. The size and type of plane doesn’t seem to matter – they are all old – and funnily enough they don’t have young trolley dollies – the first flight from Melbourne to Auckland had all “older men” – silver tops at least over 50 – and today’s flights had older women desperately trying to look younger!