: It was clear when I returned to the campervan for the night, but the winds were quite gusty. Wind gusts here have a different profile than back home: in the U.S., you might have a fairly steady wind of 10 mph, and then the wind will increase to 20 mph for the “gust”; in New Zealand, you’ll have dead calm, and then you’ll get a blast of wind at 20 mph. As a result, the more sudden increase makes the van rock a lot. And I awoke to rain at 2:45 a.m., so I was expecting bad packing conditions this morning.
Wrong again; the alarm went off at 6:30, the skies were partly cloudy, the temperature felt like 7 C, and the grass around the van was pretty squishy from the night’s rains. Over to the ablutions block – surprise! – there’s already someone else in the building, which means it’s warmed up a bit. Showered, and packed up the bedding in the van for the final time.
Now it’s time to pack all my “stuff”. I came over in one very large, very heavy duffle bag that was just over the weight limit for the Australia – New Zealand leg of the trip, so I got hit with an overweight / 2nd bag fee by Air New Zealand. Well, the trip home wouldn’t be any lighter, so I bought a second duffle bag at a Katamandu (sort of the REI of Australia) clearance store in Christchurch to make the packing more organized. I put my two camping duffles in the original bag, and all of my clothes & riding gear in the Katamandu bag, which made each one a lot more manageable.
All packed by 8:45, so I ate a final bowl of Black Currant Kellogg’s Mini-wheats and milk. I dropped a half-full jar of boysenberry jam, a three-quarters full jar of peanut butter, and the rest of my cereal in the “food donations for other travelers” box in the kitchen, and I had the wheels turning at 9:15 a.m.
I filled up the van one final time before I dropped it off at the rental agency. I had rented an inverter to help keep my laptop and cell phone charged while camping, but it never worked properly, and they refunded the rental charge accordingly. They agreed the van was in the same condition in which it left (have I mentioned previously that the van had 239, 300 km on it when I took it out?), so we closed out the paperwork and they dropped me at the airport just after 10 a.m.
My check-in at Christchurch proceeded smoothly (I didn’t even get charged for the second bag), until they asked if I had a camp stove with me. Is it empty of gas? Why, yes it is, as I had poured the small amount of remaining fuel into a bottle and left it at the camp office that morning. Can they verify it? Sure; so I opened the bag, located the stove and gas bottle, and gave them to the agent. She said I’d need to open the fuel bottle to make sure it was empty, so I did, and it was, except “it still smells like fuel” – and it can’t.
So I headed to the men’s washroom with my fuel bottle, and spent 20 minutes filling the bottle half-way with warm water, adding hand soap, agitating, then rinsing and repeating and repeating and… you get the idea. By the time I finished, all it smelled like was hand soap – and they agreed – so I replaced it into the duffle and headed to security. At security, I passed through without incident and waited for my plane to arrive.
When the Airbus A320 I would be flying to Auckland arrived (at 12:10 noon for a 12:25 departure, I knew we would be leaving late. About 5 minutes later, I felt my seat bounce up and down, and a bit to the side over a period of three to five seconds – sort of like sitting in a car where the right-side wheels drove over a small speed bump. I looked around, and there were several other people looking around in concerned confusion. It turns out we had experienced a magnitude 4.3 earthquake, according to what I later learned from New Zealand’s equivalent of the U.S. Geological Survey. Can we get airborne, now, please?
The plane was painted in black and silver – the colors of the All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team. Jetways and ground equipment prevented me from getting a shot of the entire plane, although the tail section can be seen in the following picture:
We departed Christchurch about 25 minutes late, at 12:50, so we didn’t arrive in Auckland until 2:20 p.m. – still plenty of time for me to make my 5:30 flight to Sydney. To get from the domestic side of the airport to the international side is either a 5 minute bus ride or a 15 minute walk, so I walked outside on a fine day with temperatures around 15 C (59 F).
Once at the international terminal, I had to pass through outgoing customs and security. Security for this leg of the flight was considerably tighter, so I had to remove my steel-toed boots (normally, you get to leave your shoes on for New Zealand security), They also detained my helmet bag, as I had neglected to empty my water bottle, which was subsequently confiscated.
My flight to Sydney left on time, and arrived about 20 minutes late at 7:20 p.m. (Sydney is 2 hours ahead of Auckland) due to strong headwinds. I cleared Australian customs (after they cleaned the soles of my boots, which had some soil in the lugs of the soles), caught a shuttle to the Formule 1 Sydney Airport Hotel, and here I am just before 9 p.m. But that equates to 11:00 p.m. in New Zealand, so I’m heading for bed.
Tomorrow, I explore the Sydney public transportation system and, hopefully, downtown Sydney. G’night, mates, from Sydney.
Airline miles: About 1,500 miles for the day
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