My adventure began after Maz very kindly dropped me off at Heathrow Airport on Friday evening. As usual, we had factored too much time in for delays, so I had a long wait. So I divided my time between reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and people-watching, which at Heathrow always reminds me of Love Actually.
Plane no.1, from London to Singapore, took off on time. I have never been on such an enormous plane - (an Airbus 380) ten seats wide with an upper deck too!
I was really lucky on this first leg - I was sharing a four-seat row with one other person, so there was room to spread out. Never having been on a long haul flight like this, I was fascinated to discover that a small pillow and a blanket are supplied for overnight flights - very civilised. Nor that at a certain point, the entire plane goes into sleep mode - as though the cabin crew were our parents, declaring “lights out”. I slept longer and better than I expected - and I now understand why David and Sarah and Becky and Arran use white noise to soothe the kids to sleep … the rumble of the plane’s engines did the same. And I was able to lie across two seats for part of the night.
After a 13 hour flight, which included two tasty and imaginative GF meals (!), I disembarked at Changi Airport. Which I was not impressed with - yes, it was clean and spacious and had a fabulous coffee shop which Maz would have loved, but I would have traded all that for significantly better signposting and even a shred of understanding of “gluten free” in the food outlets.
I found the Butterfly Garden, but assume they were all asleep. Here’s a Photo of some chrysalises for Sam.
Another long and tedious wait for flight no.2, from Changi to Auckland (10 hours this time, but it felt more like 20!) because a) the plane was full b) I was in the middle of a row of three, in spite of having asked for an aisle seat and c) we were seated below a loud and annoying air conditioner, so I got hardly any sleep.
The entrance to Auckland airport is very attractive (see photo below) but I was *not* impressed at having to queue for two hours (along with seemingly everyone else from several flights) in order to have my hiking boots inspected for cleanliness. Which is part of a new NZ government bio security drive, which I’m all in favour of, but it needs to be better organised and staffed.
The hotel room for tonight and tomorrow is huge and very nice. I had a soaky bath as soon as I’d checked in, and feel a bit more human. The milk for the tea and coffee ones in dinky little glass bottles….
It’s now 7:35 pm on Sunday 1st March. Not sure when you’ll get this, but I love you all heaps. The interesting blogposts will start tomorrow evening. Xxxx
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