After taking a last walk around town, it was time to finally say goodbye. Even on a cloudy morning, Queenstown manages to offer amazing scenery! Getting home was both eventful and uneventful. It was a piece of cake to get to the airport and luckily my flight was running more or less on time. The weather in Queenstown this morning was not particularly good and they were bringing planes in from over the lake since the fog and cloud cover was making the ‘fly through the mountain valley’ approach less attractive. It was interesting to notice that the Qantas and JetStar flights were all either delayed significantly or even diverted. No fear though for the Air New Zealand pilots! They were keeping things on schedule (and are presumably more used to dealing with the low cloud weather). In fact, a JetStar 737 had been in a holding pattern above Queenstown for a little more than an hour at the time we left. During that hour or so, our plane managed to land, unload, reload with people, and take off - all while the JetStar flight was in a holding pattern due to the weather.
My flight was a little delayed getting out of Queenstown and the flight took a bit longer than I thought it was going to. All of this made me quite nervous because I didn’t have a lot of time for my connection in Christchurch. I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I booked this flight. I will never again book a 45 minute international connection… But we’ll get there in a minute. Back to Queenstown – I was absolutely shocked that we did not have to go through security to get on the plane… This may only apply to New Zealand domestic flights traveling to other South Island destinations because the international flights and the flights to Auckland required going through security. But not Gate 1 at the Queenstown airport. They had a nice sign next to the door telling you what you weren’t allowed to bring on the plane, but no one was checking anything. So, that was a bit of a shock. It also meant that I would definitely be going through security in Christchurch… thus adding to the time crunch. As I mentioned, my flight was a bit late getting into Christchurch, so ‘lightly jogged’ through the terminal – rushing to get to the international gates. Luckily, the airport is pretty small. However, to get to the international gates, you first have to pay $25!! Literally, they have cashiers waiting to take your money (or credit card) and you have to get your boarding pass stamped by them before they will let you out of the country. Apparently this is some sort of tax. I didn’t have time to ask whether this was just a Christchurch thing or whether it was a New Zealand thing (they didn’t do this in the U.S. or Australia…). I also didn’t have time to make a dissenting remark about how stupid it was… I raced through security (luckily there weren’t many people there) and just made it to the gate in time to get on the plane before they closed the door. Whew… I honestly could not tell you what the Christchurch airport looked like. All I remember is what the signs for the international terminal, the cashier station where they took my $25, the security checkpoint, and the gate agent who said “you just made it, cheers!” Everything else was a blur.
The flight was great. The Air New Zealand in-flight entertainment system was much better than Qantas. But the Qantas food was better than Air New Zealand. I got to watch Scrubs on the plane!!!!! That pretty much made my flight right there because I haven’t been able to watch any TV (much less shows I like) since I’ve been here. Anyhow, it was nice to watch a few re-runs and then I settled in with a movie before getting back to Melbourne.
Now, I’m back. I’ve already done some laundry and now I’m getting ready to get back to work here. All before doing the travel thing all over again later this week!
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