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Published: September 10th 2011
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Friday evening and I’m a bundle of nerves.
Sleep?
Sleep???
What is that, I’ve packed everything three times atleast, mind revolving in ever increasing wobbly circles, wondering how I’m going to cope.
Had a coffee, chucked my pillow into the suitcase, showered and dressed, panicked a bit more and then it was time to go to the airport.
With hubby and daughter with me to farewell me, I checked in, sent my bag on its way and went over to the café for some breakfast A slice of bacon and egg pie. .............
............It's 3.15pm local time. We've had dinner?
I think it was dinner.
My choice was the lamb (mince) potato type pie.
peas and carrots, bread buns,a pineapple / ham / red pepper concoction I suspect was the starter , cheese and crackers and kapiti ice cream. Quite a feast really.
Must say I was rather well fed... or is it I'm just not used to being served.
Coke, water and coffee ... and a queue at the toilets, which also became the local meeting place
3 hours in and my co passengers have just pointed out we have found Australia.
I'm seriously wondering what
the Kipling monkey
yep, know one of these creatures ;) mind tricks I am going to have to employ to survive the next 27 or so hours before touch down in Heathrow ...ye gods
Speaking of the Gods, Odin and co, were grand. The weather forecast for Saturaday (D Day) was for rain pretty much everywhere but the airport was sunny ...sweeeet. Pity I didnt think to ask the Gods for an air worthy plane as they canceled the flight at 7.45am.
Argh!!!!
and then said, sorry next available flight is at 10.30am.
oh no, that is not good enough, cant have that!!!
I would miss my connecting flight, so back to calling on the Gods for their kindly intervention.... and at 8.10am they called for us to board, the technical problem had been sorted ... yay.
So still managed to get a coffee in with KA at the Auckland airport. Bless her cotton socks as I was still a major bundle of nerves.......
......So far I've met only friendly peeps , getting quite cosy with a Cathy & Jean ...as only you can when being packed in like sardines in a tin cylinder hurtling along high in the sky. They too are flying all the way
Long Drop
I'll pass on that experience, ta. to London.
Get to Brunei and then sit on the Tarmac for ¾ hour while the Brunei Royal Family disembark and get whisked away
Finally they shift the plane to a different docking station and let us off.
Was pleased I decided to use the plane toilet before leaving, especially as the toilets here were a bit of a surprise (see photo) and less than sweet smelling too, no I didn’t use them, I just couldn’t resist taking a photo when I was told about the surprise others got when they went to relieve themselves.
Also found KA’s name sake (again see photo)
Only an hour waiting here, long enough to type these few words and then walk around and around in boring circles, just to get the blood flowing.
MY only 2 hours sleep last night are beginning to make themselves felt as wholly inadequate. I hope I will sleep on the plane on this next leg.
Dosed my way through the Brunei to Dubai leg, cat napping, rousing for drinks of water, juice, coffee etc, didnt feel like the meal so only picked at it and saved the crackers and cheese for later, which happened to be wise as supposedly everyone was sleeping and therefore not interested meals.
The third leg of the trip, was a night time flight and so managed to get sleep, lots of short snoozes so thank goodness not a complete mess upon arrival.
The pilot was ever so pleased on arrival at heathrow, he had announced that he expected to be put in a holding pattern for atleast ½ hour before being cleared to land, and 5 mins later said we have got lucky, they have found a gap for us (Thanks Sam) and so we went straight in and landed precisely when I expected to (ie, when Sam said we would, I like that)
Just one small incident during landing which was the touch down itself, we got the speedwobbles. What amused me is that just before the wheels hit the tarmac, I knew and so stopped looking out the window to watch, sat back and pressed my head against the head rest and braced. Wasn't worried, knew we’d be fine and we were, much to a LOT of relieved sighs from other passengers when we had finally lost enough speed to be rolling along in a straight line.
So here it is, Saturday 6. 30am and we finally can get off / out of a tin can, ie disembarked , I followed the signs, found my way to the baggage collection area and waited and waited and started worrying and waited some more before finally I spied my bag. Next and last hurdle is getting through customs. And blow me down but that was such a breeze I missed it, I found myself outside where peeps were waiting to greet their friends wondering how I missed customs (I didn’t) its just nothing like trying to get into New Zealand, nothing like it at all.
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