New Zealand 2017, November 24 (Double Down)

Two years without a holiday, what better way to start than a 6:00am drive to the airport, leaving a car in the long term car park for ten days and hoping the battery would still work at the end. The airport was quite empty except for one idiot trying to play the same tune over and over again on a free piano in the departure lounge, I soon moved away so I didn't have to listen to that crap for half an hour. Only after getting out onto the runway we found out that we'd be stuck there for an hour, because there was only a single runway operating for planes taking off and landing combined! Not good news with a connecting flight and a two hour gap.

I'm not sure how this happened, but one of the tickets was 'seat and bag' and the other was 'the works'. What does 'the works' get you? It seems to be just a breakfast meal and I think you get access to the full range of content on the entertainment screen, otherwise you have to pay to watch some premium movies or TV shows. I just listened to a couple of sports podcasts instead anyway so it didn't matter. Just before landing in Auckland one of the attendants said because of the short margin until the Rotorua flight we should just take our bags directly to the gate, because they might not have time to put them through normally.

After getting through passport and customs check there was only about 20 minutes to get over to the separate domestic terminal, a bus leaves every 15 minutes but who knows when the next one is coming, otherwise you can walk one kilometre. I walked as quick as I could while rolling a suitcase, but arriving at the terminal I found out that the flight time had actually be moved back by 15 minutes anyway! I asked at the gate what do with the luggage and they seemed like they'd never heard of anyone taking luggage straight to the plane before, neither had I, so just took it back to the normal bag drop anyway. The flight was delayed an extra 15 minutes on top of that, so there was plenty of time in the end.

I was going to change my phone over to an NZ SIM card while I waited, but I had forgotten that the Samsung Galaxy A5 has a pin hole you have to poke to unlock that compartment. Of course I don't take safety pins on a holiday, so I had to go and buy a whole pack of fifty at the store, then spent about half of the 30 minute plane trip trying to get the old SIM card out. The plane to Rotorua was tiny and the airport itself just as small, getting out of the plane the first thing you notice is this really strange smell in the air, which turns out to be sulphur fumes.

The options to get to the hotel about 10 kilometres away were to wait about 30 minutes for an hourly bus, get a shuttle bus or get a taxi. We went with the taxi despite my dislike of them, and actually cost a bit more than the shuttle bus for two people. The rate was like $3 per kilometre, but given the crazy price of petrol that is somewhat understandable. At last a long day of travel was over at 6:00pm local time.

During hotel check-in the receptionist said due to the sulphur in the air the magnetic key cards might stop working, so you receive a regular key as well. I'm not sure of the chemistry behind that, but the cards worked exactly once, as advertised, and then it was over to the backup solution.

Feeling a bit hungry so walked down to the city centre, got some nachos! from a cafe then stopped at Countdown (fake Woolworths) which was just across the street from the hotel. Nothing too different at the supermarket except for a limited edition raspberry Coca-Cola, but I like the cherry flavour better.

Somewhere in Rotorua

Steps: 9000