Look out NZ! We have arrived!

Chelmsford to Auckland – update Wed 5th Jan 2005

A lot has happened since the last entry on Sunday.

We are sat in The New President Hotel central Auckland. It is 5.30 am and Chantelle and I have been up since 3.30. That must be the jet lag. Feel a lot better than yesterday- when dazed and confused about summed it up. It was a LONG journey with long periods of low-level stress whilst sat on the 2 planes alternated with short periods of higher stress, at Heathrow (horrible – don’t park on the top level of T3 short stay- the view is not compensated for by the wait for poxy little lift – but it was a good idea Nick!). Heathrow and Auckland were both heaving, Hong Kong lovely and spacious and quiet.

Cathay Pacific seemed a good airline to go with, the crew were always helpful and polite even when I kept the help button by mistake. They looked after the boys well. Food was tasty and plentiful with fresh fruit or a salad at every meal.

In-flight entertainment has moved on since my last international flight (20 years ago). Little screens in front of every seat with controls on the armrest. I caught up with some films “Motorcycle Diaries” (perhaps better on a bigger screen but ok), “Minority Report” (great idea), “Wimbledon” (predictable but oddly stirring to imagine a Brit actually winning Wimbledon). Played chess – easy to beat computer even on “hard” level. Favourite for lots of people was “Airshow” - a real time series of screens showing flight data : global and local maps of current position, altitude, distance travelled, airspeed etc. What was weird on the approach to HK was that hardly any of the window blinds were up even as we went over the Urals and Chinese mountains. Reminded me of going to the races at Newmarket where everyone watched the huge screen in front of the stand rather than the horses that were thundering towards us.

Other memorable bits of the journey were: Paddy sleeping half on and off his seat, passing over Oz - we had window seats by now and could see the coast 37,000 feet below, Eric being awake for the whole of the first leg, bloke trying to squeeze into overcrowded lift at Heathrow, shop at HK called “Fook Ming Tong” ( can a Cantonese speaker translate it into English?).

We were denied an aerial view of Kataia as we overflew it, being on the wrong side of plane and cloud cover was thick even when we were over land on our side. Nz is not called “Land of the long white cloud” for no reason. Boys were “wickeding” like crazy as we came through the clouds and could see the city and harbours.

Talking of boys - how are they adapting? Eric and Patrick are doing well, E seems happy to be here and is looking forward to a more active life. He has decided to get some weights so he can start working out; following brother Walt’s advice. Paddy is going along with the flow seeking his thrills in every moment. Stuart seems a bit more bothered. He has been moaning a lot, arguing that NZ is not as good as UK for this and that reason. (eg pointing out bits of litter when the rest of us are marvelling at the cleanliness of the streets.) I think he is missing his home comforts, stability and Matty.

Cannot finish this without a big thanks to Colin and Heather who fought through the crowds to pick us up at the airport. We had tea and cake on their “dick” (deck) listening to cicadas and trying to talk in a civilised fashion, whilst stopping the boys from trashing the joint. They then drove us right into town to our hotel, what a pair of stars!

Should also mention that we were not too impressed that the hotel were not expecting us and could only put us up for 1 night. Mind you it would have been a lot worse if they had been full last night. E-bookers failed us on that one and shall be hearing about it.

Current plans for today are to go shopping for essentials (SIM card, sunglasses, bird id guide etc) then find a room for the night and do some sight seeing.