Last night the blinds weren’t drawn in the lounge where I’ve been sleeping, and Misty the cat and I enjoyed being able to see the foliage as we listened to the bird song. It also meant that we had an effective alarm clock when the sun came up. Not that Misty cared. When I got out of the bed she just looked at me and went back to sleep. And totally ignored everyone as we rushed around packing things and clearing away our dirty laundry – such as those on my bed! It was about 8.30 by the time we got the bed reassembled into a sofa. We were due to leave at 8.45am.
Up
till now, each time I've packed my suitcase, I've unzipped the extension,
zipped up the main zip, and then successfully rezipped up the extension zip. I
didn’t even attempt that today. I’m not sure what I’ve got that’s extra in
there, but whatever it was, it’s taken up a lot of room.
Murphy’s
sprung into action. Up till now the weathers been overcast and a little drizzly
and on occasion we have had to deal with rain. Today? Today it was fine, we had
brilliantly blue skies and little wind.
Today,
of course, is the day we fly home.
Not
that it was bad having that weather, we had no issues about flying out of
Wellington airport, which is notorious for its winds causing havoc.
The
four of us (leaving Misty snoozing somewhere) headed to the airport. Ann and
Duncan were not only making sure we were leaving the city, they were going to
pick up another friend who was going to stay. The Shelton Hilton is in fine
form. And Duncan was a big help in getting us through the check in procedure.
The
five of us (including Mercedes whose plane had arrived about the time we got to
the airport, had a cuppa and a chat. (We compared bach photos with Mercedes.) Then
we said our goodbyes and the Munros took Mercedes home. We had a wander around
the airport and took some photos.
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| Gollum at Wetllington Airport. Can you see the scale? |
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| There used to be two of these eagles. That was until the last earthquake (Seddon) when the other fell down; luckily not hitting anyone. |
Over the last
few days D.C.'s been complaining, and rightly so, about the way that steps in
the bush have been made by tall men who don’t give consideration to
shorter people, especially shorter people who have recently had their birthday.
Today, when we were given the signal that we could board, we were told that
those in rows 1-20 could enter the plane by the airbridge, while those in 21 to
the rear of the aeroplane would need to take the stairs. What was our seat
number? 25 D & E. So we had to walk down the stairs, along the tarmac, and up
the stairs into the rear of the plane. But at least these ones were all a
decent size.
Our flight was uneventful. Once again I wished I could have taken photos on lift off, but I’d been told once by a flight attendant that digital camera qualify as digital equipment and they don’t like you taking photos until it’s time to use electronic equipment. Of course that could be because they don’t want any loose bits of metal and plastic flying around if there’s an accident.
So I
missed out on some lovely photos of a cloudless Wellington, but I did get
these.
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| Kaptii Island |
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| Either Kawhia Harbour or Ragland Harbour |
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| Rangitoto! I had to get a photo of that. |
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| We started the holiday with Rangitoto and finished it with Rangitoto |
I
loved the flight. At times we seemed to be flying through fluffy white canyons.
A couple of times we flew into a canyon wall and it played with us for a tiny
bit before releasing us on the other side. The flight was so short (we had a tail
wind) that the flight attendants had only got halfway through offering out
their teas and coffees before they had to start locking everything down for
landing. Some people missed out, but we all got our biscuits or chips. But no
boiled sweets.
I’m
sure that the flight describes and arc. We seemed to be no sooner levelling off
before we were descending again. The take-off and landing were smooth.
Auckland
was pretty much the same as it always is and we had lunch at the airport before
catching the Airport bus into the city. The problem is that this bus doesn’t
actually go up to the Skytower where the InterCity bus terminus is. And I’d
like to bet that the reason why the bus terminal is there, instead of somewhere
more practical, is because SkyCity bought someone off. So we had to get off the
Airport bus in Queen Street and drag our bags up Victoria Street, which is extremely
steep for one block.
Once
we’d reached the summit, we stuck our suitcases into a locker ($3 for one hour
and then $5 for after that) and then walked back down Victoria Street and up
the other side. (Queen Street’s actually a creek in a valley.) We circled
Albert Park until we came to the old Jewish Synagogue. We went there for two
reasons. One, D.C. has a Jewish friend who used to worship there, and two: Ann’s
been helping to set up an art gallery in an old hairdressers next to the
Synagogue.
We
didn’t think the art gallery was going to be open, but it was, so we popped in
for a look, didn’t understand any of it, and popped out again. We got the
Synagogue photos (I don’t know what it’s used for now, but it’s cared for) and
then walked back down into the valley and back up to the SkyTower.
Then
we waited for an hour for the bus to leave. That was another smooth ride, even
if we had a grumpy bus driver.
We
got to Thames, had a stop off at the Martina Diary to get breakfast and then the
Thai restaurant for tea, and came home to check our emails.
The
holiday’s over. It was great and I loved it all, but I have to say that, no
matter how comfortable the others were, there’s nothing like your own bed.
