Our flight from JFK Airport was delayed, but we were unconcerned as despite a stop over on the ground at Los Angeles, it was the same plane, under a different flight number, which was to take us on to Auckland in New Zealand. So no worries about missing connecting flights, in fact it made the wait in LA shorter. The flight between NY and LA was disappointing. Our seats had far less room than the majority of others on the plane – less even than on EasyJet! – and for us the cabin service and cabin crew, far from impressed us – poor ratings for that flight Qantas!
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Los Angeles airport was very festive, and our seats whilst waiting were beside a huge, beautifully decorated Christmas Tree. We felt like a couple of gnomes sat there, feeling we should start singing Carols!
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After about an hour and a half, we noticed our flight deck crew for the flight boarding and with excitement now mounting, we were called to board soon after.
Spot on time at 23.30 we took off, bound for the real core of ‘This Adventure’, New Zealand. Our seats were a huge improvement to those on the previous flight, the meals enjoyable, with the cabin crew having a far more amenable approach – OK Qantas, you have just recovered your ratings!
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It was a long, long haul but we slept on and off and enjoyed the moment of a couple of diversions , celebrating crossing ‘The Equator’, and later as the very early hours of Wednesday 30th November, became the very early hours of Thursday 1st December, whilst crossing the 180 degree west meridian thereby entering Easterly Longitude – Margaret’s first experience of both these phenomena.
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As I say, it was a long flight, both of us were now really ‘chocker’ with the colds we had brought with us from the UK, so we were not at all disappointed by the time the cabin crew were instructed by the flight deck, to prepare the cabin for landing at Auckland. Our excitement was really now mounting, however I am sure our alarm could easily be imagined, for whilst watching the tarmac of the runway becoming closer and closer, reaching that point of the familiar bump, as wheels touched mother earth, instead, the engine noise increased dramatically, the nose of the plane turned swiftly to point at quite a steep elevated angle, whilst the plane soared once again into the air!! I must confess, for a few seconds we both thought, ‘is this the end of the adventure before it had even started?’
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It was with an element of relief for us all that once back in the air, the pilot came over the intercom system to apologize for any alarm, explaining that at the last moment before landing, they had lost radio contact with the control tower. It was not, the pilot continued to explain, permitted to land a plane unless continued clearance with the tower was communicated by either radio, or the displaying of a green light above the tower.
The tower had not activate
the visual signal, so without radio contact, the pilot had no other option than to abort the landing. Radio contact had however now been resumed and we were to make another approach. Taxi-ing to the terminal building a few minutes later was very welcoming, we were in NEW ZEALAND, our ‘Adventure’ could begin.
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The procedure for internal flights we found to be brilliant. Although it was a few hours before our flight at 12.40, we were able right away to check ourselves in on the machine, print our boarding passes and drop our bags off at the baggage point.
The airport seemed so open to us, clean, light and bright. Everyone, staff and fellow passengers alike seemed to carry smiles on their faces, and were so friendly, being more than happy to help if asked. There was actually just one exception to this, the Immigration Officer who was on the desk as we checked off the LA flight. He was a sour faced, miserable B….. but as he was literally the only such person we met in the whole of our stay in NZ, we will forgive him, who knows, what problem he might have been carrying that morning.
Whilst waiting for our flights, we noticed for the first time what became our experience of the norm, throughout the whole of New Zealand. We ordered a snack breakfast at one of the cafeterias, receiving a smile and we had a really friendly chat with the assistant. Later, the young lass who was clearing the tables came up to ours and with a big smile on her face asked if we were ready for the table to be cleared. Whilst doing so she catted away to us as if we were long lost friends. I couldn’t help draw a comparison with Luton, Heathrow, Gatwick, Bristol or any other airport in UK.
Soon it was time for our flight, signaled by an illuminated board over the boarding gate. Once through the gate, a short walk took us to a small forty seater New Zealand Airways plane. It was a fantastic flight, the sun was shining, only a very few clouds in the sky and it was warm – sadly, this was to be one of the few similar days during the NZ summer of 2011/12, but then you can’t have everything. Our Captain, a middle aged very friendly lady welcomed us aboard, then handed us over to the one cabin crew member on the plane, who in line with as outlined above, chatted in such a friendly welcoming way to all the passengers, smiled continuously and served us with iced water, biscuits and coffee on the 55 minute flight.
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The views from the little plane were spectacular and we were both really excited when we landed at Nelson airport,
which whilst very small, was also light, bright, clean and in excellent condition.
No sooner had we walked through the arrivals door than this guy with a wonderfully weathered face, walked over to us offering a huge smile and a handshake and said, “You must be Pete and Margaret, I am Al Ford, welcome to Nelson”. It was Al from whom we were hiring the camper, this was parked outside in the small Short Stay car park only 40 yards from the exit. Having collected our baggage from a trailer – no conveyor type baggage collection in Nelson – completed the paperwork in the back of the camper, listened to various snippets of advice from Al, he was off on his bike with a shout behind of, “Anything, and I mean anything I can help with, give me a ring”, and we were FREE. Our home for the next 100 days looked immaculate and perfect for what we wanted.
We decided to find a camp site locally for a couple of days whilst we got ourselves sorted, did some washing, stored up the camper with essential stores and hopefully threw off these colds we were carrying. We soon found Tahuna Beach Holiday Park which was ideal, so after a visit to a wonderful supermarket – where funnily enough we ran into Al again – to obtain immediate essentials, we booked in.
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We really enjoyed the next couple of days getting to know how things worked “down under”, buying one or two extras for the camper, BBQ etc., finding a place for our clothes, bedding, toiletries and food and also ‘chilling out’.
Nelson was a lovely town, in a beautiful location with shops from which we could buy anything we wanted.
As is usual on our travels, we bought a local mobile sim for our phone and a local internet dongle with sim, we find this by far the least expensive way of communicating and keeping in touch.
Map of New Zealand
We had decided to start our ‘Grand Tour’ by covering North Island first, where we also thought we would spend Christmas. The excitement within us both had mounted during our stay at Tahuna, really loving our introduction to this wonderful country, so it was that on waking on the morning of Saturday 3rd December, we could wait no longer, setting off towards Picton to catch the ferry which would take us over to North Island and the start of our:-
ROUND THE WORLD ADVENTURE
. Part lll
.New Zealand, North Island
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Please join us on our following pages when we hope you will come to love New Zealand as much as we have. It really is a beautiful country with a remarkable if short, history, an amazing life style, but what most makes it the country it is, a fantastically warm, welcoming and friendly people.
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Pete and Margaret
