Well, I am finally in New Zealand with my little sister.
The count down has ended. Woohooooooo!
For those that don't know, the plan was to get here on Christmas day with a massive box that would fit, say... two girls in. We were going to get in the box at the front door, knock on the door close the box and when they answered, we would jump out and surprise them, as they did not know we were coming. Great plan hey?
Well we thought so... until...
The story goes something like this...
We got up nice and early Christmas morning at Grandmas to get ready. By early I mean 3:30am.
We had to leave there by 5am to get to the airport 2 hrs early as our flight was at 9 :15am GCT (Gold Coast Time). We would get to New Zealand at 3:20pm NZT(New Zealand Time).
Part of the highlight of the surprise was the way we dressed. We wanted to look outrageously Australian, so we found some great green and gold out fits.
We arrived at the air port at 6:30 full of excitement and nerves, ready for our 2 hr wait. We checked in, gave them our huge TV box (thanx Matt ans Maria), and headed for the coffee lounge. Because of our outfits we were attracting quite a few funny looks and a few funny comments too.
Matt and Maria sat with us for a while until it was time for us to go through customs and down to our terminal. Off we went, full of beans and ready to fly out.
We sat down at out terminal waiting and waiting till about 8:00am when a call on the speakers went through saying something like this, "due to a cracked window on your air craft, there will be up to a 2 hr delay on your flight. We apologize for any inconvenience and we have food vouchers for you to come and collect from gate 83."
Well some of the faces were not good. It was Christmas day for goodness sake. We sucked it up and thought, well at least we will be there by 5:00pm NZT.
So we sat around for a bit then decided it was time to get our free food. Yummy. Off we went, all the while meeting some great people that just couldn't help but say something.
We went back and sat down and ate. At about 10:00am GCT we heard the next message which was about to change everything. "This is for flight DJ 186 flying to Auckland New Zealand. There has been further delays and your flight will now be leaving at 5:30pm GCT. Sorry for any inconvenience, and we have more food vouchers for you if you would like to come and collect them from gate 83."
Oh dear!
Everything suddenly changed. Our world was being turned upside down. All our months of planning... out the window. We looked at each other and sighed, "Its ruined". We would now arrive in New Zealand at about 11:30pm with know way to get to there house as no one thought the shuttle buses would be running that late as well as the fact that we now had the sit in an air port for another 7 - 8 hrs.
Not happy Jan!
Well to make this story a bit shorter, we found ways to amuse our selves for 7 hrs. Movies on the laptop, cart wheels, hand stands, funny stupid photos,
playing with a bunch of little kids that were on our flight, who couldn't keep away from the bright colours we were wearing. We actually became friends with like everyone on our flight. We played hacky, which God blessed us with for free from a shop in the air port, and had a bunch of fun.
At 4:30 another call came. "Your flight is now leaving at 6:00pm". We had now decided we would sleep in the New Zealand airport so we didnt have to wake the family at 3am.
At about 5:30pm came another. "Your flight is now leaving at 6:40. We have a plan, we have the crew but we are waiting for a pilot to arrive from New Zealand".
Well sure enough, after 12 hrs at the air port on Christmas day, we were on the plane by 6:20pm and flying out by 6:40pm GCT.
We Got to NZ by 1:30am NZT, found a shuttle bus, got to the road at 3:20am and walked down with all our luggage. We didn't want to wake them so we laying in the bow looking at the stars.
I woke up to water on my face. "Hayley... Hayley. Wake up, it's raining". She looked up and wanted to cry. The light was on in the garage. That was weird and I was freaking out. We grabbed our stuff, freezing cold and ran to the garage. The light turned off before we reached it. I stoped but Hayley kept going. "Hayley, stop" I said. She wouldn't. I followed. We put our stuff there then went for a walk as I was too scared to stay there. We sat at a bus shelter that stunk like wet dog at the beach. The seat was slanted so we could not lie down. We had slept for about 20 minutes in about 24 hrs and we were feeling it. We were pretty emotional. We left there and went for a walk down to the dairy, thinking we would wake them at about 6:30am. I went to a phone and rang the operator to ask the time. Hayley guessed 4:36am... it was 4:37am. We sat and sat ans sat.
Hailz checked the time this time. It was 5:40am.
We walked back to the house and sat on the front porch watching the sun rise. We now decided not to wake them till 7 being the day after Christmas and all. I put my head in my hands. "Tash" Hayley said. I sat up. Hayley started cracking up. I had ribbing on the sleeves of my jumper which I had just had my face on. I now had lines across my face, bags under my eyes, and we both didn't look quite how we looked 24 hrs ago. We got up went to knock on the door but I chickened out. Hayley told me to go have a look at myself. There was a mirror in the garage. Oh dear!
Thats it, we're going in. I gave one look at Hayley and said, "you sure"... "do it" she said. I walked up and knocked. My uncle Rod answered. The face was great.
We walked in and sat down. They gave us breaky and a shower. Then we sat on the lounge.
We were here. It felt so surreal. The wait was finally over, and we thought, thank you God for not letting us take it for granted.
And the rest is another story.
Click on my flicker photos to see some more of our New Zealand photos.
