Flying Adventures

New Zealand is so big (much larger than I originally thought) we have to take a few flights so we can make it to all the places we want to visit.  We head off early in the morning to the airport, one - because we have an early flight and two - because it's an unfamiliar airline/airport and we have to get gas, return the rental car, etc.  

We discover we can't get gas (no gas stations open at 6am), we return the car (no problem), then go to check in at the kiosk (no problem).  Air New Zealand has you tag your own checked bags.  Really?  I thought there was some law in the US that didn't allow you to do that?  With some minor mishaps (and some assistance from the attendant working) we successfully have the tags attached.  We get lots of practice, because we have to check three - Air New Zealand only allows a small carry on, no more than 15 lbs.  We then go over to wait at the gate.  Wait....aren't we missing something?  Can you see it in the picture below?

The check in kiosks....from the gate area.  Look at all that empty space...

That's right - no security!  For the small domestic flights, you don't go through security.  When we ask the attendant about it, she said, "We trust you."  Hmmmmm......  It felt nice, but a little uneasy at the same time....  I did kind of check out the passengers getting on our flight.  Everyone looked pretty normal though.

If you also notice, people are missing in the picture above.  That's because we ended up being 75 minutes early for our flight.  Our helpful attendant (obviously employed to help the wandering tourists) said a couple of flights had just left, and another wasn't expected to land for an hour, so that's why it was so empty.  Steve was totally bummed, because he totally ruined his average wait time of five minutes to board the plane (if he can't walk to his gate and board the plane immediately, he feels he got there too early).  So we enjoyed having the entire airport to ourselves for the next fifty minutes.  Finally some people wander in...but they're not on our flight, they're greeting people coming off the arriving plane.  At the gate!  Oh, the good old days!  It's like flying in the 80s. (Remember when you would do school trips to tour the airport?  I bet they don't allow that anymore.)

Finally 20 minutes before our departure time, the other passengers on our flight start straggling in.  I felt like we were wearing a big tourist sign on our shirts.

For our flight to Queenstown, we had to connect in Wellington - and all we'd heard for the past week was how windy that airport is.  We check the weather, and it's actually looking pretty good.  (Side note on the weather website - We had heard that Kiwis like to abbreviate stuff.  Okay, no problem.  One of our tour guides recommended a New Zealand website for the weather, and he said it kind of fast, but I caught "dub dub dub" and figured I could remember that and I'd be able to find it.  Later that night at my computer, I couldn't find any weather site for New Zealand that matched it.  It took me another day before I realized "dub dub dub" was short for www.  Steve and I had to laugh at that.  Luckily, google came through for us and I was able to find the site - www.metservice.com).

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand (ha - bet you thought it was Auckland) and is on the southern most tip of the north island (yes, that meant we had to fly from the south island to the north island, to go back to the south island).  I would have loved to spend a couple of days there, but we just didn't have time.  So here's what I saw of Wellington.

Wellington, from the sky

Then once we landed, we had to walk from the plane to the terminal.  They had a cool sign up on the outside of the building:

that I took a picture of.  Turns out there are some security concerns in New Zealand - someone immediately started yelling at me about taking pictures.  They didn't make me delete it, though!  

Our thirty minute layover in Wellington turns out to be more than enough time (I'm starting to adjust to NZ flying) and we're able to make our flight to Queenstown (and I limit myself to just a cursory look over our fellow passengers to determine if everyone is "safe").