Kia ora...nau mai!

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Yes, it really is another five hours flying time once you pass over Australia! But eventually the Chinese passengers are being told off AGAIN for ignoring the 'go back to your seats and put on your seat-belts' announcement that they've been ignoring all throughout the flight whenever we get a bit of turbulence, and we begin our descent. And beautiful it is too with lush green mountain folds giving way to a sun-sparkled sea dotted with islands surrounded by sighs of envy at realising people actually live on these mini spots of paradise.

I know this won't last long as more people replace old passports, but for now I forgive my dreadful new passport photo for verily my new passport holdeth treasures of joy that help me queue jump like the VIP biatch that I really am. Chiptastic! I'm through to baggage reclaim without having to interact with uniform festooned officialdom at all. Being New Zealand though, there is the added excitement of declaring whether you have anything from a long list of biohazard items about your person like fruit and muddy hiking boots. I don't, and for once not even the cute sniffer dog is deployed to set on the lone traveller as is my normal experience at airports.

Kia ora, nau mai (hello, welcome)

And so I walk through the ornate, wooden Maori carved welcome arch into New Zealand and blearily wander about looking for the Skybus to take me to - the sky! Everything seems to be premised with sky in Auckland. I pass the Sky Tower and Sky City after getting off the Sky Bus on my way to my luxurious room in a hotel. The rest of my trip will be shared rooms in youth hostels, but just to tonight I have a space to call my own. The sky's the limit.

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