Part 1-The Outward Journey
This next adventure to the other side of the world began as
all long journeys do; with the first step. At 11.00 am on Monday 30th
November we locked our door. We are grateful that our friends, Paul and Mary
were the first part of the journey, on a damp morning to the i4 bus. It was a
good call to leave at that time in the morning and have plenty of room for our
cases and cabin bags.
At Broadmarsh coach station there was time for sandwiches
before going to the coach stop. When it did arrive, slightly late, we were told
that it had broken down and we were to go on another coach and change at Milton
Keynes. We faced with two slight causes for concern. The first one was as to
how long we would have to wait at Milton Keynes and the second was the signs on
the M1 advising of 1 ½ hours delay after Milton Keynes.
In the event there was no time lost at Milton Keynes. With
regard to the second cause for concern the driver opted to keep off the M1.
Despite being on roads not designed for the coach we eventually arrived at
Heathrow only 30 minutes late.
The transfer to the Premier Inn went quite smoothly. A young
man took us through the intricacies of self-check in. Using a code sent
to Irene’s mobile phone the machine delivered us two key cards and a room
number. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the furnishing. Having
got sorted out we went down for a good meal in the restaurant. A good night’s
sleep followed and at 5.00 am we were up and making our way to the airport.
Check-in was, like the Premier Inn, also streamlined. Once I
had found the correct code from the many supplied it was a simple matter to
have boarding passes and case labels printed. There was still a queue for
baggage check in. This time our cabin bags were given a seal of approval. This was the first time in our travels that we have sent our luggage to go on ahead to Auckland. This was a bit un-nerving. Going through
security was not as bad as I imagined it might have been, given the recent
terrorist alerts. One of the security guards asked me if I had any liquids. I
said, “No.” and that was that.
Terminal 2 has really hit international quality standards. It
is a beautiful, easy to use facility. We had breakfast at ‘Eat’. Mine was croissants
and Irene had yoghurt. Soon we were through the gate and walking down the long metal
tube to our seats. Having booked a window seat, it did not happen. This was not
a great problem.
The flight was long and steady with good food and plenty of
movies. It felt quite odd walking to the ‘Transit Hotel’ with just our cabin
bags.
It was 5.30 am (local time) when we arrived at the hotel
where we were greeted politely and given our room keys. At first sight the room
was very much of the ‘Premier Inn’ style. There were clever touches. One wall
was a mirror and this gave the impression of being in a larger room. Next to
this was a ceiling to floor curtain. However when I opened it I was face with a
wall. The room had no windows and was almost sound proof, apart from an
inconsiderate couple walking by our door halfway through ‘our' night.
A note on the wall said that shaving kit was available. It
was quite a luxury to be able to have a shave at this point in the journey. By
3.00 pm we were ready to get up and go explore the airport. The first stop was ‘breakfast’.
This came in the form of donuts and coffee at ‘Dunkin Donuts’.
The one thing that we wanted to do was to visit the butterfly
house. This is a great feature of Changi airport. It is a roomy cage on two
levels with a waterfall. There are loads of colourful butterflies and moths.
Unfortunately our flight was not until around 1.00 am. This
meant a lot of hanging around. We walked to see their Christmas tree scene.
We
found a Wi-Fi hotspot where we could use our tablets to send and receive
messages. There was also supper time. This, for me, consisted of a sandwich, a
donut and iced tea.
Eventually we passed through security and on through another metal
tube to our next pair of seats. Once again we were without a window seat. I
would have liked to have had a better look at the Martian-like landscape of
Australia which I glimpsed from time to time. Compared to the first leg of our
flight this 9 hour one was over very soon and we landed at a cloudy Sydney
ready to spend 4 hours in the airport. Our first call was ‘Gloria Jeans’. At
last we could have decent coffee. Singapore does not do dairy.
At this point we changed to New Zealand Air for the next
stage of the journey. This time we had a window seat. Through the window we could
see 3000 miles of sea below before we caught sight of the coastland of the
country that was going to be home for the next three months.
This time we had to go through immigration procedures. It
took so much time to fill out our forms that when we arrived at the luggage
carousel our cases were easy to spot.
The next part of the procedure was to show our card and
passport at the immigration barrier. There were few people waiting and it
should not have taken long. However, there was a small party of Chinese people.
Firstly they were using 8 year old documents. Eventually, out of kindness they
were accepted. Secondly there was a cultural difference which meant they had a
different attitude to queuing. As always the border guard was very friendly. Once
again they accepted our answer to their question. This time it was about
whether we were carrying fresh food.
To make sure all our baggage was scanned before we could
leave and finally a lovely dog sniffed around us.
An excited Zoe greeted us at the barrier and then we were off
into the warm New Zealand night arriving at our final destination at 10.30 pm
on Thursday 3rd December.
