Διαβάστε το κείμενο στα Ελληνικά: εδώ
The world is in an unprecedented situation right now, and I was wondering if it was appropriate to blog about the great time I had travelling. I decided that it was OK. We are all bombarded daily with sad and scary news and I hope that reading and seeing some pretty picture from another country will help both my readers and me forget a little about everything is going on.
So my lovely readers. Here is the beginning of my New Zealand travel blog…
Our flight was on March 7th and after 10 days stressing about if my trip is going to be cancelled because the coronavirus (it was not a pandemic yet, we had less than 100 cases in the UK and only 3 or so cases in New Zealand) time was finally here! It was a Saturday and our flight was at 20:30 which left us with plenty of time to finish the last packing, drive to our dog sitter to leave our baby there and drive to the airport.
We had a 7 hours flight to Dubai, a 3 hours stop there and then a 16 hours flights to Auckland. I have to say that I was impressed with Emirates services. On both flights, we provided with a menu to choose between two dishes and the food was actually pretty good. On the second fight, since it was way longer, we were also provided with a little pouch that contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, some socks, earplugs and a mask.
This is Dubai during our landing to catch our connecting flight. Pretty isn’t it?
So after 26 hours of travelling, we finally arrived in Auckland! We left on a Saturday 7th and we arrived on a Monday. 9th of March. Sunday was just skipped. I have to say, I expected a bigger airport and a sea of people, and although our flight was full there the airport wasn’t that busy.
New Zealand fauna and flora is very delicate so when coming in the country you need to declare any outdoor activities equipment. We had diving and hiking equipment that we had thoroughly cleaned, but I was still a little stressed that they might think it wasn’t enough. To my surprise when we got to the biohazard check they asked us if the equipment that we had declared had been cleaned. I answered thoroughly and they let us pass without even checking. I was flattered that they trust me but I was expecting them to be more vigilant. Maybe I watched too many episodes of “border control”.
Anyways, after that, we got into the rental car company’s shuttle, pick up our car, and we were on our way to Whangarei, a town 2 hours drive north of Auckland. I was impressed by the quality of their roads and how easy it was to find your way. We had our sat navs but honestly for most of the time it was unnecessary.
We arrived at our lovely cottage, in an amazing location not too far from town and with all the utilities we might need. It was already 17:00 so we just when to by some essentials (breakfast, snacks and pasta) then we headed for dinner and back to our lovely place to pass out. Surprisingly enough at this point, I wasn’t feeling jet-lagged and didn’t have any issues to fall asleep.
This wasn’t the most interesting part of the trip but I wanted to do a day-by-day blog diary. I promise the next one will be more interesting and more amazing photos!
1 thought on “A 26 Hours Flight and the Arrival”