Cairn to Auckland

Friday morning and its time to leave for Australia for New Zealand.

When we board the plane its the first time I have really looked at my boarding pass. Row 18 E. No wait a second….. I never book a middle seat. We had row 18 seats D and F…. window and aisle. I pull out my confirmation and double check. Yep Row 18 seats D and F. I work my way back to the Flight attendant and show him the discrepancy. He says “You are right Sir. I have no idea how that happened. The flight is totally booked but take your seat and I’ll see what can be done”. Not happy but acknowledge that he will try I go back and get in the middle seat looking very uncomfortable with my knees plastered into the seat back of the seat in front of me. The plane fills to capacity with Chinese on vacation. The isty bitsy teeny tiny Chinese woman who is my seat on the aisle has horrid breath. Joan tries to ask if should mind switching and taking the window seat so I could have the aisle and Joan would take the middle. She looks at Joan like she had asked her to sell her newborn child and shakes her head ...N O.

The flight attendant comes by and apologizes…..most sincerely…… but the plane is 100% full and there is no seat for me but the one I am in. He offers me a complementary drink for after takeoff and asks what I would like and I reply a Vodka Tonic. He smiles and says No Spirits on this flight, beer and wine only. I ask what kind of Dark Beer and he looks with sorry full eyes and says “ Strike three mate. Only Australian Ale.”.

What can make this day go worse.

Ok……… Bad question……… Seems that now that I am seated and we are ready to back away, my seat back refuses to stay in the locked and upright position. I bring this to the flight attendant and we try hard to make it work. To no avail. Plane door has to be opened and mechanic brought on board who pulls the seat apart and tinkers around a bit and says “Sorry mate. Can’t fix it so I froze it in the full upright position for takeoff and landing. Cheers”.

Joan has flown with me many times and knows my straw is about to break and offers me the window seat and she will take the middle. It is a L O N G flight from Cairns to Melbourne and now we are 30 minutes late leaving and have no idea what we face in Melbourne to go from the Domestic Terminal to the International Terminal.

We all have to pee like a racehorse when we land but are told to hurry inorder to make it through outbound customs, and then security, and then to the international terminal. We turn in our forms, answer their questions, and run to their version of TSA security which we already know is more lax than US. But Steve is stopped at the metal detectors, frisked, pockets emptied and sent through again only to have his belt be the ultimate culprit. Fran needs her bag searched as it is lined with foil and obstructs the X-ray vision.

We rush to the gate for our flight that was supposed to start boarding 15 minutes ago and find to our relief that they are just starting boarding. Joan and Fran make a beeline to the restroom, I board the plane because during our brief but wonderful stay I have purchased a Digereedoo and am carrying it on board. I am happy when Joan, Steve and Fran all join me on the flight. Quantas is terrfic and we have another lovely meal, chocolate, and ice cream bar in our 3 hour trip to Auckland.

When we land in Auckland it is five minutes to midnight and we left Cairns at noon. How did we spend all day getting here? The mysteries of time zones. We have a free shuttle to the Oakwood Manor Motel which we are assured will arrive shortly and we should exit door 11 and turn right then look for a black van. When we exit through door 11 at thirty minutes past midnight it hits us. The humidity. It may not be hot or raining but the air is wet. We watch as other travelers exit and their vans for airport parking, the Sheraton, the Kiwi express and others stop and pickup their passengers. We keep looking for the BLACK Oakwood Manor Van. ………..

nothing…………

after 25 minutes here comes a beatup old white van with black writing on the side that says mostly (some letters are pretty faded)……. Oakwood Manor Motel. We have a lively friendly driver with a very thick Kiwi accent who collects our baggage and toses it in the rear while we try to climb in. It sounds like he said their are two more passengers he is waiting for. I have no idea where they will sit or where the bags will go. The van has seen better days and I doubt that the roof would support the bags. He dissapears inside the terminal and without a word starts the van and off we go.

Try as we might, we cannot figure out what he is saying to us through his accent. He is very friendly but not understandable. He says he will take us to office and leave the bags in the van. After we get our room keys he will drive us to our rooms with our bags as it is quite some distance. Arriving at the motel, we have realized that we have been living in the lap of luxury so far. Our driver it seems is also the night clerk and he proceeds to check us in. He says we aught to buy a bottle of water if we need something to drink while we are in our room and we each buy two bottles while staring at each other wide eyed. Joan and I are in room 154 and Steve and Fran are in room 260. That’s a lot of rooms for this motel so we all pile back in the van while our driver/night clerk locks up the office.

He then backs up 20 feet, drives 20 feet around the office and then 10 feet later stops and says its our room. I chuckle but its late. Joanand I and our luggage all say goodnight and go into our room. He gets in the van and drives 20 more feet to the building across from us and Steve and Fran and their luggage exit the van.

We are tired and need a good nights sleep as it is now 1:30 am. Our room is stifeling hot so frantically we are searching for the air conditioning controls. None to be found. None of the walls or rooms. We have a kitchen and a separate bathroom area and a dining room and a large bedroom with two beds but NO Air. We both have a look of horror as we realize that not only is there no air conditioning, but there aren’t any fans. Not in the ceiling or floor or anywhere. The windows barely open but there are no screens. Fortunately the beds are firm and we agree to sleep separate as its to bloody hot and humid to sleep together.

As Steve says, you can’t appreciate the highs unless you experience the lows.

I am now days behind in blogging as we haven’t had decent internet access since we left Sydney. While our room was hot and stifling, Steve and Fran had ceiling fans and a floor fan. Well until she turned it on and realized that it was a heater. And their beds sagged so bad in the middle that Steve said it was like being in a hammock without all the benefits.

What are adventures without a story.we know this can’t be bad as we are about to depart on 14 days of luxury aboard the Holland America Noordam. Cruising is wonderful so up is the only direction we can go from here. But in the meantime we have to get to a laundry and wash all our dirty clothes so we have enough clean clothes for the cruise.