So I left Queenstown very early the next morning for my last rip on the Stray bus, which was the journey to Christchurch. We had a new driver, who was called Arial, but he didn’t tell us why. We slept for a fair amount of the journey, as we had done a lot of parting in Queenstown, and the last night was no exception; and the weather wasn’t that great. We had a few stops, one was at Lake Tekeapo, but it was sooo windy, and we got blown about quite a lot!
We arrived in ChCh at about 5 in the afternoon, and were dropped off at our hostel. I went shopping for some food, followed by chilling out for a while before having diner and then going down to the bar with the others from the bus, where we spent the night before leaving at about midnight for an earlyish night, after all the late nights and no sleep of Queenstown.
I was woken up at about 7 the next morning by building work happening right outside our hostel, and I wasn’t impressed. So I got up, to find out that it was quite a nice day, so after some breakfast and a bit of internetting, and booking stuff for the trip home, I went for a walk around. I went to the botanical gardens, where I bought and wrote some postcards, sitting in the sun, and then I went to the Rutherford Den. Rutherford grew up in ChCh, the Den is where he conducted some of his earliest research into electricity and magnetism. I then wandered around a bit more, and enjoyed the last of the daylight I would be seeing forthcoming 36 hour flight. I went back to the hostel as it was getting dark, and met up with the girls from the bus for a chilled evening of packing and sorting for the very early start.
It was a 5am start on the Morning of the 1st September, going home day. I got up, grabbed the last of my stuff and the food I had made for the taxi ride the night before and got in the taxi to the airport. At the airport I found that my flight had been delayed for about 90 minutes, so I got to sit in the airport where nothing was open getting bored. I did have time to eat my breakfast and have a wash though, so that was ok. I also phoned the parents to let them know I was on my way home, but for them it wasn’t going to be for ages before they had to come and pick me up, so they found it rather strange that I was at the airport!
My flight departed from ChCh to Auckland at about 8am, and was another uneventful flight. As far as I can remember, I slept, but it was only about 90 minutes, so was over pretty quick. It was then quite a quick turn around at Auckland, and a change of terminals to the international one. My bags had been checked in at ChCh, so I didn’t have to worry about them. I then spent the last of my kiwi dollars on some kiwi chocolate, which is choccy with bits of kiwi in it, was yummy. The next flight to Sydney was equally uneventful, but I got talking to a kiwi who was off to visit friends in london, but wasn’t on my next flight.
At Sydney I had about a 3 hour wait, so I bought some lunch, and a glass of wine to use up my leftover dollars. It was horrible waiting at the airport, because I had to stay in the international terminal, as I couldn’t go through customs, so I had to look out of the window at the sunny spring weather! It was then onto the British airways flight to Bankok. I was sitting next to an English guy who was just finishing a year out travelling after graduating. We were sat right at the back of the plane, and had the 4 seats for the two of us, so we had a dedicated snacks/drinks tray in the middle, the extra leg room was also much appreciated due to the excessive snowboarding bruising making sitting down by this point rather uncomfortable! I watched a few films, and slept for a bit and ate some airline food before we landed in Bankok, and I had absolutely no idea what time of day it was, apart from that we had 45 minutes at the airport. I think it was night-time in Bankok, as the airport was relatively quiet. We walked along a massive concourse, and then turned around to go right back to the same plane, via the loo for a quick wash and teeth brush.
We got fed as soon as we got back on the plane, but I think by this point, I had almost lost the will to live, so ate the salad and the pudding, and had a glass of wine before going back to sleep. I then watched films and napped until about 2 hours away from london, where they woke us up for breakfast, or meal of random timing. I had lost my appetite by then, so stocked up on orange juice and fruit. We got to heathrow at about 6, just as the sun was rising, and I think we were the first flight in, as we had to do a few laps of the airport to waste time before we could land, as we were a bit quicker than planned in arriving.
Customs and all that stuff at the airport was pretty quick, and boring as always. I then walked out to meet dad and olie, who were picking me up, but they were just walking over, having had breakfast in weatherspoons!
It then the last and shortest leg of my journey, the car journey home, and back to reality.
Recent Comments