Flying to Belfast

7:30 pm on Wed 17th Sept we got picked up by Heather Andrew who very kindly took us to the Auckland Airport ( Thanks Heather) With a reasonable amount of luggage (with three girls in toe) we had a painless check in. Thanks to Air NZ. That airline is phenomenal. 

Auckland Airport "Mesley's Unleashed" UK Tour is about to get real!

First Leg was Auckland to Hong Kong. 11.5 odd hours. The plane was a 777/300 so we couldn't get a 4 person row so Kim drew first watch with me quietly seated in the row behind!

 The girls did surprisingly well. We took off at round 11pm so everyone was ready for a bit of kip - except for Chloe with an infinite supply of TV she cracked into systematically starting at one end of the library and commenced working her way through it.

Hannah couldnt work out why we were getting served dinner at midnight! Neither could we to be honest! But we still ate it!

Trip was pretty uneventful landed in Hong Kong at round 7:30am and soon noticed straight away how many people would think it ok to spit into the trash cans. Niiiice!! We quickly located our Gate, then once orientated we hunted out a coffee shop for some breakfast.

We found a food court. This was a little confusing as we would have to prepay for our coffee at the counter, but for everything else we would have to select the food we wanted first, then go to the counter to pay for it. So you could imagine that I spent a fair amount of time at the counter.

The girls got their first taste of different currencies. They got the fright of their lives when they saw a fruit bowl for $88! So I explained to them that this was Hong Kong Dollars. The current exchange rate of the Hong Kong $ is 7:1 so now we had a "This is why you go to school" conversation about how much $88 was really in NZ $. After what it seemed to be an eternity we worked out how many 7's go into 88. At this time I was on my 3rd coffee so I could take it. Chloe, the sweet tooth as she is, saw a black forest cake so asked if she could get that. So did Hannah! They both know now that eating rich chocolate at 7:30am in the morning is not such a good idea.

We get to the check in gate and Cathay Pacific were now the carriers for this leg. In the same type of plane (777/300) we had the same seating arrangements. What was quite interesting was they didnt have any structure to people boarding so they just opened it up. Now we have 300 people waiting in line. So we just decided to sit down and wait for the line to get smaller, than wait there in line for 3/4 of an hour like pilchards.
Then the steward (not allowed to call them Air Hostesses anymore, apparantly its uncool and unPC! - A mate of mine is a pilot and he calls them $40K / year coke machines, which I thought was pretty funny) then said that we have to line up because they have a "pre boarding" check. We looked at eachother and the Kiwis beside us and all just said..... Naaaaaaaaa stuff that.

We all got on the plane - 12.5 hours later, a permenant kink in ones lower back, sore neck, and the list of movies getting smaller as Chloe worked her way through them..... We arrived in Heathrow.

Now feeling a little jaded, we had to clear customs (which took an age) then proceed to Teminal 2. At pace I might add. I missread the flight departure time as being 17:15 and it was less than 50 minutes before that. So we power walked for about 15 mins to Teminal 2. Get to Air Lingus Desk, checked in, and the woman there said we were nice and early! Flight left at 20:40. So we, again, found a place to eat something and hung out at Heathrow for our flight.

Photo Bomb!!!! Kim and Hannah trying to simulate being back on those comfortable plane seats!

Flight into Belfast City was on an airbus small thing. But the only recollection I had was putting my seatbelt on closing my eyes and next thing I hear the anouncement saying to prepare for landing! Why doesnt all flights go this fast! - Mind you it was only 1:40 hours.

After 30 hours odd of travel we were glad to board a taxi in Belfast round 9:30pm. Got to my moms house. Finally in Belfast. I then unpacked and repacked my bag as I was to prepare for my flight to Birmingham for the Eurotek Technical diving conference leaving at 6:45am the next morning!

The adventure contunues.....