The Getting There
Our Time in NZ
Summing Up
So that's it for this post - more to come in the next...
A Broader Horizon |
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Quite some time ago, myself and Sasha had decided we would be doing an NZ-Aus trip at Christmas to visit our respective families. it would be Australia for Christmas, because a few days after Sasha's Mum would be turning 70 - a milestone birthday that couldn't be missed and the NZ portion would either go before or after. Reconciling this trip with getting new jobs in Germany wasn't easy but we had let our prospective employers know before we started with the companies that we would be doing this, and they agreed to it. We applied for the leave having just started, having worked out the dates and the logistics of such a trip and also costs. Everything fell into place - a little bit fell out of place a little while later but we sorted that and then it was all good. It was just a matter of waiting for it to come around. The Getting ThereOf course, eventually it did. That particular Wednesday evening, we made our way to Berlin's Tegel Airport with our packed bags to begin our long trek to the other side of the planet. We arrived in plenty of time, but check-in did not go smoothly at first - being an airport which was supposed to shut down 5-6 years ago in favour of the still-not-opened Berlin Brandenburg Airport, a lot of stuff is showing its age and the minimal maintenance, not the least of which was the baggage conveyor which stopped working. It took quite some time for it to start working again, and when it did we were ushered to the Priority Queue to try and help alleviate the queue. While at the Priority Queue, the conveyor broke down again but didn't take long before it started up again this time. A quick bite to eat before going through the security for our gate (and only our gate, as Tegel has individual security scanners for each gate - a hangover of trying to make modern security requirements work in an airport built in the 1960's that its not worth spending money on to modify), and then waiting in the small lounge for our flight to board. This flight was the first of three - all booked through Etihad, but every step of the way was being run by a different airline. The first leg was Berlin to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, flown by Air Berlin in one of their Airbus A330's and took 6 hours. We were fed (but they did not get the information about Sasha's bland meal request) and watered, and had a good selection of movies to watch. I know we watched the new Independence Day movie (was ok but a bit crap really) and we would have had time for another but I can't remember what it was. We landed in Abu Dhabi, arriving at sunrise there and we had to catch a bus to the terminal from where our plane parked up. As soon as we exited the plane we got hit by a blast of hot, humid air - its winter there but its still hot! We had to go to the transit desk to pick up our boarding passes for flight No.3 as we couldn't check in for that when we initially checked in. As we went to the counter after someone else had left, we noticed along with the person behind the counter that the previous person had left some of their stuff at the counter - Sasha grabbed it and raced off after the lady, managing to return it to her. We got our boarding passes, and made our way to the lounge for flight Two of Three - where we sat for all of 15 minutes before they kicked everyone out of the lounge and made everyone re-enter, getting screened in the process! this meant because of the boarding time and when they started doing this that we went straight from screening onto the plane, and also it meant the plane took off late. This was an Etihad Flight, aboard a Boeing 777 - one of their more denser configured 777's with a 3-4-3 layout in economy when most airlines do 3-3-3 in the 777. The seats were indeed less spacious than that on the previous Airbus (Airbus insist the minimum seat width on their planes is 18in, Boeing do not have any such considerations) but we'd been able to choose our seats when we booked and had selected 2 seats between the window and aisle at the back of the plane where the sides narrowed from 3 seats to 2. This meant we had a row of 2 seats to ourselves, and a bit of space between the window and seat plus a wider aisle in which to spread out into. This flight was also 14 hours from Abu Dhabi to Sydney - a very long haul. We were fed multiple times, watered multiple times and we tried to sleep multiple times (Sasha had more success with this than myself but still didn't get much). We watched movies (we tried to watch Suicide Squad, but gave up on it) and I spent time editing photos. Time seemed to drag on forever for those first hours - you'd try and sleep and think you'd done maybe an hour, only to find that it had been 20 minutes and even 2 hour movies only seemed to take an hour out of the time. Eventually after we were over half way did time speed up, but the last half an hour coming into land was spent listening to a little girl who did not want to wear a seatbelt and the entire time - the entire time - she kept bawling her eyes out yelling "Take it off!". No matter what her parents did or even the air staff did to encourage her to stop, she wouldn't stop (to be fair, the parents were more interested in telling off the boy for complaining that his ears hurt with the pressure during landing, something he couldn't help but weren't doing anything to tell off the girl who could actually stop her bawling),. Now in Sydney, and rather weary we transferred to our last flight - an Air New Zealand flight to Christchurch, and somehow we had gotten boarding passes marked "The Works" which entitled us to be fed and watered on this flight when our booking said this would not be the case. We think that in returning the items to that person in Abu Dhabi, the person behind the counter had given us the upgrade as a thank you. While we had been rather well fed up until this point, we both still felt sufficiently hungry to eat the food on offer. Technically this was a breakfast meal on the plane, but our bodies being completely out of sync with the timezone and wanting to take full advantage of the meal option available to us, we both had some alcohol to accompany it! Sasha got her first glimpse of NZ as we started seeing the Southern Alps poke up above clouds, and then reveal a largely unclouded Canterbury Plains beyond. Going through customs and security was not a big deal at all, and Mum & Dad were at the airport to take us to their home. Dinner that night was Fish and Chips, and a sampling of some of Dad's Bonniedoon beers but about 7pm I could no longer keep my eyes open! Our Time in NZThe first day we had nothing planned, as we expected to be jetlagged and would just see how it goes but thought we might do a little explore into Christchurch itself, which we did end up doing. We ended up doing quite an explore, driving around the inner city (and getting lost because nothing looks familiar anymore!), finding a McDonalds which did Georgie Pie and introducing Sasha to it for the first time for lunch, and then a big drive over to Sumner, up the Port Hills summit road as far as it would let us, down through the tunnel to Lyttelton and then on to Akaroa from there. We had maybe an hour in Akaroa by the time we'd gotten cheese at Barry Bay before we had to head back to Rolleston, and dinner that evening was out in Lincoln with Mum & Dad and their friends Mark & Jo at a restaurant made entirely out of things recycled from the Christchurch Earthquake. The Sunday was a big day - it wasn't originally going to be, but we juggled the order of some things so we could take advantage of what looked to be the best weather opportunity to do a drive up to Lake Tekapo. So Sasha and I set off, got breakfast in Geraldine (very few options open in Ashburton), and found our way to a beautiful blue sky Tekapo with snow-dusted mountains in the background. There were lupins galore here too, just as I had promised Sasha and she was a bit overwhelmed by all the pretty scenery and flowers. We spent 20 minutes at the Church of the Good Shepherd looking at lupins, the scene, the dog and the church before we went back to the car and I started liberally applying sunscreen - it wasn't until we were outside in that sun that I could feel it needling into me in that familiar way and remembering that NZ sun isn't like the European sun. Sasha thought she'd be okay without sunscreen as she doesn't burn like I do, and we went to Lake Alexandrina and up Mt John. Later we drove south to Lake Pukaki to see if we could see Mount Cook, which we could - a perfect day for it! Our drive took us down to Omarama and down the Waitaki Dam system to Waimate, then through Timaru back to Christchurch. About Omarama Sasha started becoming noticeably red, the sun being more vicious than both of us had reckoned - even I was showing a little red from that 20mins out in the sun prior to putting sunscreen on. We got some moisturising cream to try and lessen the blow, but unfortunately at our dinner that night with some of my train friends Sasha looked a little sunburnt! The dinner was at Speights Ale House in Tower Junction - and I had not really noticed before how expensive the food is there compared to what you get (and "Mushroom Sauce" is meant to have more than 1 mushroom in it - just saying), but also the service was particularly crap. In hindsight I wish we had gone somewhere else. Monday - an initial visit to Mainline Steam Christchurch, followed by a day exploring some of inner city Christchurch, partly by Tram thanks to David but also a lunch with Kevin and a general explore around the Container Mall. We also had dinner with Mum & Dad before we went to a theatre show at the new Court Theatre in Addington, where we saw "Legally Blonde" which was good but the lead actress wasn't as talented as some of the other actors in the play which made it seem a bit unbalanced. But the show was quite fun. On the Tuesday we took a fairly leisurely drive up to Arthurs Pass and back on a fairly overcast day, so it wasn't as pretty or scenic as it could have been otherwise. But still a nice drive, we actually made it across to Otira (which Sasha didn't think much of, but there is not much there to think about!). We also found some Kea's which was partly the aim but not as many as I expected, they were nowhere to be seen in Arthur's Pass township itself. That evening we had dinner round at Shannon & Richard's new place, with Hobbsy also visiting. Wednesday - a flight in the morning to Wellington aboard Jetstar, with a smooth textbook flight to the capital. We were picked up by David who then took us to his and Denise's house, where we dumped our bags and then wandered around Wellington in the sunshine until Denise finished work. Later Sasha, Denise, David and I headed out to Tawa to have dinner with Grandma, Darryl and Jenny at the Roundabout Pub. After the lovely weather day on Wednesday, Thursday was far less nice. Denise had the day off and we had the use of the car, so we headed out to the Weta Cave - but we found the tour through the "Window into Weta" sort-of factory tour was booked out until later that afternoon. So we bought tickets and then headed up to Paekakariki, to visit Steam Inc. It was great to briefly see the team up there, and see the latest progress with the trains. We did end up spending a bit more time there than I anticipated, and we were also getting hungry and also realised our timing was out - if we were to make the tour, we needed to leave now and maybe there was time for lunch also. We did stop off and have lunch in Mana, then carry on but did arrive at the Workshops 10 minutes late. We'd been automatically rebooked onto the tour 30mins later so that was okay, we still got to do the tour. Denise wasn't feeling well by the end of the tour so we went home and she rested up. That evening, Sasha and I went out to One Red Dog for dinner with a bunch of my Wellington-based train friends. Friday was our last full day in Wellington, and it started off with us taking the train out to have morning tea with Grandma at her house. We had originally planned on doing it the previous day but with all of our timing being out of whack, we re-coordinated with Grandma. It was a lovely chance to catch up with Grandma again as it had been a bit hard to hear each other over the table in the Roundabout Pub the other evening. Afterwards Grandma very kindly dropped us off at the Linden station, where we met up with my friend Debs, the triplets and got to meet the new arrival Lacey. We all then headed into Wellington on the train, had lunch at McDonalds and then wandered along the waterfront together visiting the Wellington Museum (what was the City & Sea museum) and also some time in Frank Kitts park where the triplets played on the playground. Following some ice cream from Kaffee Eis, we all walked back to the station, saw Debs and the girls off on the train and wandered through central Wellington past Parliament, down Lambton Quay and getting to the Bucket Fountain in Cuba Mall before catching a bus back to Denise & David's and later had a bbq dinner - in all a really nice day. Our Saturday was originally going to be a bit of a big day - we'd booked to catch the Interislander Ferry from Wellington to Picton, and then the Coastal Pacific train from Picton down the Kaikoura coast to Christchurch so that Sasha could see some more of NZ's scenery. However, the November earthquakes literally derailed that plan and after we learned of the alternatives, we elected to fly back instead as we did not like the idea of being stuck on a bus through the Inland Route through the South Island and Lewis Pass. Our flight was with Jetstar as they were the only ones offering tickets at any kind of reasonable price by the time we went to book, and unfortunately they only had one flight which was mid-morning. Our afternoon in Christchurch was spent relaxing and I think going out for dinner at the Vicarage in Halswell. Sunday was fairly quiet also, but was the day we had our "NZ Christmas" with Mum & Dad so we opened up presents and had a Christmas meal at lunch. The afternoon was spent packing and gathering cookies and treats to take with us to either Australia or back to Berlin with us, and that night we went out for dinner at Denny's with Lindsay, Shelley and the family as Shelley and Lindsay hadn't been able to come to the Speights Ale House dinner. Jessy came too and the venue was where Jessy would have originally liked the Speights dinner to be at. Mum and Dad took us to the airport on Monday for our flight to Adelaide in the afternoon, and saw us off. The last time I had left from NZ it had been from the same airport, only Mum had seen me off as Dad had work and I got a bit teary eyed as I left Mum to go through the security gates. This time it was very different - I didn't feel teary eyed this time, I knew it would still be some time until I saw my parents again (probably about the same amount of time as last time) but I wasn't venturing out into uncharted territory for myself, about to face a world of unknowns. Don't get me wrong, its not like I wasn't sad, but this time there was no reason to be scared or fear whats ahead even though there was still a lot of unknowns ahead. Perhaps it is a measure of how much I might have grown as a person during those two years away, maybe it was because I had Sasha with me. Maybe it was partly that our holiday wasn't yet over and we still had Australia to go, so there was no "Well, that's come to an end" feeling. Maybe it was all of those things. Maybe none of those things. I don't know, but I kind of felt bad that I was not feeling bad about it if that makes sense. But we waved goodbye to Mum & Dad as we headed into security, eventually boarded our Virgin Australia plane headed for Melbourne, and had a great view of the Canterbury Plains, the Southern Alps and the West Coast before we flew out over the Tasman. Half an adventure over - and half yet to come... Summing UpIt was really, really good to go back to New Zealand, see friend and family once again and also show Sasha where I came from and some of the places I really like in my home country. I would dearly have loved to show Sasha the Cook Strait ferry ride through the Marlborough Sounds and the trip down the Kaikoura coast, but Mother Nature decided that one will have to wait for a future trip. I think Sasha is keen to explore more of New Zealand and enjoyed what she saw of it so far - certainly she got a bit overwhelmed by the scenery and lupins in Tekapo! We did cover quite a bit of country in the South Island, less so in the North Island but there is always far more to do and see. I will probably do a more fuller summing up in the next post encapsulating the entire trip, but for now here's a map just showing what we covered in the South island in particular: Saturday 10th, Drive around Christchurch and Akaroa (red); Sunday 11th, Drive to Tekapo, Mount Cook, down the Waitaki Dam System and back to Christchurch (Purple); and the drive from Rolleston to Arthur's Pass and back, Tuesday 13th (Green).
So that's it for this post - more to come in the next...
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August 2019
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