Category Archives: NZ

Travel day is here?

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Finally travel day is here, we have had our pre-departure covid test and all is OK.

Todo list

The todo list is all clear, so it’s off to the airport we go.

Having rushed around, we’ll rushed may be an overstatement, all the tasks completed it was in the car to the airport.

We didn’t have to worry about parking thanks to the taxi service of sister Jenny.

The long wait to get away continued as we arrived 6 hours early for our flight. Thankfully we have lounge access and luckily we both do not drink as all the alcohol on offer would have been too tempting.

There was a large range of beers, wines and bubbles, but only one tap for water although that one tap served hot, cold and sparkling water.

We heard the call for our flight and realised that the lounge had completely emptied out, we were the only ones left.

So it was rush to the boarding area just to join all the other passengers waiting to board.

Nearly time to travel again.

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It’s 5 days until we leave on our first international flight for 3 years.

With Covid still around we won’t be certain if we can travel until Saturday, our departure day.

The USA still requires a negative pre departure test. To make things worse Jo fell ill last week. She never gets unwell.

So the last week has been spent taking RAT tests and checking, hoping they are negative.

Are the results correct, there are reports that they are only 50% accurate. Can 4 tests all be wrong?

Well there are lots of little jobs to get done before we leave. Like eat all the perishable food before we finally go.

Check back later to see if we do get away.

Hauraki Rail Trail

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This is going to be our second trial run, before our European tour.

The ride is again, not so much about the distance covered, but about the logistics of vlogging it.

This time we remembered to bring the drone with an sd card installed.

There is now getting to be quite a network of trails on the Hauraki Rail Trail. It originally started in Thames and went to Waihi.

Now there is a branch off at Kopu that goes around the coast to Kaiaua, and another that branches off at Paeroa and goes the Matamata via Te Aroha.

Today isn’t the day for us to cover the full trail, we just covered a small section from Paeroa to Waikino.

On our ride, we rode through a 1.1km tunnel and past some old gold mine batteries.

So why don’t you pop over to our video on YouTube to see how our trip went?

Below is a map of our route.

The Delays

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A great band to hear at an Isle of Wight concert, but not so good when the concern your flight.

After hearing the second call for our flight and it being 30 mins to take off and a 15 minute walk to the gate, we left the comfort of the lounge.

Taking our time we arrived at the gate 10 mins later to find that boarding hadn’t started.

After another 10 mins waiting we were told that take off had been delayed until 22.15, 30 mins late.

Bene’s band could have had another hot chocolate (well that’s another story).

Finally seated in the plane, with our pre-flight glass of bubbles, we were informed that there was a discrepancy in the bag count and the pilot didn’t know how long this latest delay would be.

The final delay was when we landed, our gate wasn’t available and so we had another 15 min delay.

So not all Delays are good.

Now to see what happens on the next leg.

Into town for lunch

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Our second walk in two days. As it is Easter Sunday we’re not too sure what is open and what is closed today. But we’ll soon find out.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3575301562?share_unique_id=4

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