When the reality of going half way around the world with the boys dawned on us again, the first thing that came to Nina & my mind was the lack of crap that we won’t be taking with us this time. No nappies, no cots, no formula bottles blah blah blah, how easy was this going to be. Well as anyone who has done long haul flights will tell you, it’s never easy. But boy oh boy was it going to be easier than last time.
And sure enough, thanks to Air New Zealand and their genius direct flight Auckland to Vancouver (a mere 13hr flight) the travelling was a lot easier. Leaving Dunedin airport can be a bit underwhelming at times, and considering the security we were about to go through, a lot laughable. No security checks, just boarding pass and a short walk to the plane.
We were of course leaving early Winter in Dunedin, and in a few days (lay over in CHCH) we’d be in the middle of summer (or so we thought). The boys were excellent travellers. Yes it did help having the lay over in chch, after all we had Jamie’s 8th birthday to have with the grandparents – and yay no earthquakes.
Next was a short flight to Auckland, a very quick turn around late in the evening, and finally on our flight to Vancouver – that was after some power Duty Free shopping.
Aside from that fact that it wasn’t a 747 that we were boarding, and the seats we got for ourselves weren’t what we thought, the flight & plane was awesome. The 777 only has 3 middle seats, so poor Nina was stuck with the boys for about 2/3 of the flight. Being a late flight the formula was pretty simple. Get settled, get dinner into the boys, change into their PJs, watch some of their TV or play games then lights out and sleep. Well aside from some inevitable “i’m too tired to sleep” routine, this is how it went. Sure it was long, sure Nina and I got bugger all sleep, sure I didn’t drink as much as I was hoping to, but the Air New Zealand staff were bloody brilliant. Even when there was a full on medical emergency, things still went smoothly.
How happy were we the next morning to realise that not long after breakfast we’d be not too far off the NW coast of North America.
All in all it was a brilliant trip, bloody hard work, but the boys were of course spectacular in their behaviour and their patience, after all do they ever sit down for 10mins let alone 13hrs.
Landing in Vancouver, we were immediately greeted with a wave of heat (wasn’t to last) and free wi-fi, so of course I needed to make the most of that, sending out tweets and reading all the messages sent to us while in transit. Aside form the massive line (which moved very fast) the immigration was dead simple and over and done with in minutes. Collected our bags and we were back in Canada baby!
Jamie and Charlie's big trip 