Sometimes do not work out. Instead of leaving Rotorua and flying to Wellington at 1015, we ended up flying out around 1630. I could go into the long drawn out day of the flight being delayed and then canceled. Our calling the travel agent, trying to rebook the flight, canceling our airport pickup….. etc, etc, etc. But let’s just leave it to say… we spend the whole day in the airport. The upside? They gave us travel vouchers for us to eat our way through our misery and yes, the vouchers even counted towards alcohol.
The whole let’s not tell you till the last minute your flight has been canceled or delayed, pretty much, not wanting to be crass, makes me grumpy. And everyone knows how unpleasant I am when I am grumpy. But the way the NZ air does domestic travel is so much more civilized than flying domestically in America. (I don’t think I have every flown domestically in other countries… Well there was that flight from Connemara to Inis Meáin. That was pretty decent too.You don’t go through security, today they weighed our carry on luggage, but usually it is scan your item going under the plane, print out a bag tag, get a paper ticket unless you have the barcode on your phone, wait with others until your plane is called and wham bam thank you ma’am you are on your flight. You can leave the sitting area and go outside if you want and no worries about going back through security.
So here we are stuck in the airport, trying to find a quicker way to Wellington, and you know what? It is just easier to take the planned flight later in the afternoon. The airport at least has reliable interwebs. Gammy wrote her musings, I finished up one blog (I am still so far behind, but think by the end of this musings… I will be all caught up and we can all ride the ferry together !), had a sausage roll as I hadn’t had one yet, had a cider or a glass of wine. All was well. The afternoon flight was delayed coming from Wellington and when it finally arrived, I know I said a little prayer, not sure about the others. Oh and since it was the last flight of the day of this particular airplane (well at least after we arrived back in Wellington) we stayed on the tarmac and performed safety procedures. Kind of like a bus emergency drill we do at school, except we didn’t have to exit the plane.
Wellington is a big airport, as it is one of the major aiports in NZ. Seeing it was going to be a bit bigger, I ordered a wheelchair for Gammy. The wheelchair ladies met us at the bottom of the plane and wheeled her to the inside doors, where we picked up the slack. Did I tell you about that big hill at Waitangi where we let Jim take over pushing Gammy? Well there was a nice incline in the Wellington airport that I tried to race push Gammy!
There are a couple of Haast’s eagles mounted in the Wellington airport. Haast’s eagles are extinct. They used to feed on the Moa bird, but since that is also extinct the poor Haast’s eagles had nothing to eat. The pictures came out poorly because the sun was setting and shining brightly through the window. We didn’t look for the lift as we were at the escalator, so Mommy decided she would walk down. A nice security officer told us were the lift was, I guess we looked puzzled. But we motored on. Our driver met us and drove us to our hotel: The Naumi on Cuba Street.
We decided to eat leftovers for dinner. Jim and I ran (not really) walked a couple of block down to find some wine and these Hazy Lemonades that have vodka, lemonade, and soda premixed. We came back and sat down in our room to play Rummikub.
Off to bed and then up and at em for a trip to the Te Papa Museum and a 3 hour tour drive around Wellington.
#HowFortunateWeAre #MakeYourOwnSunshine #AdventureOfALifetime
One would think Delta had taken over NZ airlines…