We have to get up early to get to the airport and I give Jen a quick kiss goodbye while she is still in bed.
My nerves about flying are not helped by a slight hangover. Ideally, I would have done an evening flight as the darkness and ability to drink myself jolly seem to help for my flight from Bali to Darwin.
However, my nervousness is soon superseded by irritation. At check-in, we are told that according to immigration controls we are not allowed to enter New Zealand without a return flight booked. I had not even considered when I would be coming back, having calculated that I could probably only afford a few weeks there. However, with Mary having already booked her flight, Caz and I have to rush off to the internet to book the return flight, and we both gets seats on the same flight back to Oz via the Gold Coast that Mary has booked. This means I will be spending six weeks in NZ.
When we get back to check in at a different desk, we are told that we need to print out the tickets for the return flight, even though our bookings are with the same airline (Jet Star). However, as the internet available to us is only a booth with no printing, the check-out clerk agrees to use their system to print them out. Our troubles are not finished yet though, as he then claims that Mary’s Aussie visa has expired and therefore he can’t let her on the flight. We all got ninety day visas when we entered Australia, so we know this can’t be right and eventually his computer corrects him. We are then told that we will need to provide proof adequate funds when we enter NZ, though he doesn’t push this point by asking for this proof himself.
It then turns out that my suitcase is overweight, even though I had weighed it at three kg under the twenty kg limit at the hostel. Bloody Australian Post Office! I also have my guitar with me. By this time I am quite wound up and despite the sign above the check-in saying that there is a 20kg limit per item, the check-in man insists that it is per person. I argue the point knowing it will be to no avail and I bin some insect repellent and put some books in my carry on to get the total weight under.
The flight is quite turbulent, especially as we descend towards Christchurch. I put this down to two huge fatties on board, one male and one female who are sat at diagonally opposite ends of the plane. I had seen the man sit down when we boarded and I noticed when we disembark that he had been moved to the opposite row so that he had a whole row of seats to himself. This doesn’t make me feel any less resentful about the fuss over one or two kilos in my luggage at check-in. Still, it is a good thing he wasn’t sat in his original seat as then the two fatties would have been on the same side of the plane and it might have landed lopsided at Christchurch....
The immigration controls process is quite quick and we are not even asked for any proof of having adequate money for our stay. However, customs is a funnel point as our tents have to be taken out and checked for soil and plant remnants. The customs lady asks us if the ‘pigs’ are in our tent bags for checking. It takes Mary some time to process a translation of the Kiwi accent. We don’t actually leave the airport until some two hours after we have landed.
At Christchurch, we check into the ‘Foley Towers’ hostel, a five minute walk to the centre of the city. This is a more mature hostel in a garden setting with small two or three bed rooms with white brushed wood exteriors. It also has a clothing exchange bin, and we do some collective ‘shopping’.
Going into the ‘city’ for dinner, Christchurch strikes me as being very similar to a large but fairly quiet English market town. We have our meal at ‘The Last Train to India’, which has a lot of dishes I have never heard of. I have a rich spicy prawn curry served to us by the wifely waitress, who I think is also the owner.
I notice on the walk back to the hostel that there are a number of Irish bars in the centre, and for future reference I make a mental note of ‘The Bog’ from which emanates the lively sound of traditional Irish jig music.
No comments:
Post a Comment