New Zealand again 2024: Day 1 Attack of the Croc

 

By the numbers

 15 kilo bag

1 plane

1 random Croc

 

The day started early as I was going to New Zealand on an early flight from the Gold Coast and I wanted to make sure everything I needed was sorted out. I had finished off my packing the day before, so I could at least get some semblance of sleep. The day started off a little bit chilly and the sky was clear so I knew I wouldn’t have a problem flying out.

 

Not sure if I can keep up the blogs over the week as I might not have internet access, but we will see what happens. I was off to New Zealand for a funeral so this trip isn’t one for real pleasure, but you never know I might be able to see some sights.  Once I got to the airport it was actually pretty smooth sailing getting through two lots of security and I had a different bag than usual, although it was inside the main bag as I was asked to bring a spare. I was feeling pretty tired still due to the lack of sleep, but I was functional. I ended up with a large coffee while waiting around for the flight as I was happy to watch some of the planes take off and land.

 

Everything went smoothly with the flight and when I thought it was safe I got hit on the head by a croc that fell out of the overhead lockers as someone had opened them. That was a shock though I do think the elderly couple beside me were trying to have a chat even though I was wearing headphones so I didn’t hear what they were saying. When I arrived in New Zealand I found I couldn’t connect to the phone network and couldn’t give mum a call since she was picking me up in Auckland. I tried all the usual things and knew this would be a great test for when I was in Japan next year. I couldn’t work out the issue and had to connect to the airport wifi to even make a call over messenger, which was lucky. We were driving to the North shore of Auckland so that was all good.

 

Once we ended up at the family members place as we would be making the drive to Whangarei tomorrow, I reached my limit and had to have a short sleep, where I felt a little bit better and could function. It was then after trying to access the phone network that I found for some unknown reason, I had to select a tower to connect to and then my data roaming would work. Not something I had to resort to and not one I will forget about if it happens again. We went out for dinner and I seen a restaurant that looked pretty cool that it had a school bus in the window and you could sit inside it in a booth. Not a real bus though. IU ended up with a fried rice and that made me happy. It was a great start so far to the trip to New Zealand and will see what happens next.