New Zealand - Day 2 3.8.2013

20130803 New Zealand  Day2

4am alarm clock this morning to slip out the door and catch the taxi to Adelaide airport at 4.30am for our Melbourne leg of the trip.

I ended up sleeping the flight away and had to be woken for landing. Sean has developed a cold and is quite a bit of sinus atm so he has found climbing and descending challenging for his inner ear pressure. A kind gentleman gave him a chewie to munch on to help it pop. It didn’t but it was a lovely gesture.

We had a little flap in Melbourne as our bags didn’t appear on the carousel.  I had been told that the bags would be checked through and not told by other service staff the bags would need to be collected and rechecked into Jetstar International.  So after a short delay and a couple phone calls by yet a different service staff, that yes indeed, our bags had been checked through. Pheww.

A chemist stop for Sean to dose up on decongestants and we were into Passport Control. Customs and Immigration was very efficient. Much more so than my experience from last year at LA X. And we were greeted with smiles. Tourist Refund Scheme was a total opposite.  I lined up for over 45 minutes to claim back the GST component on the iPad. There were four staff servicing over 60 people in the line up and it was certainly not a speedy process. Fortunately I saw the only man and he was quite pleasant and I was done quickly. Kym had taken the kids on to our gate and to find something to eat before boarding. I arrived at the gate only a couple of minutes before boarding. Pheww again.

Sean pretty much went straight to sleep and stayed that way for but the last part of the flight. Kym was his cushion. 

Annie was bright eyed and bushy tailed. The lady next to me swapped with her husband to talk cameras/astrophotography and stuff. And blow me down, we both know Lester Barnes. What is the chance of that on an International Flight?? Needless to say my flight went fairly quick.

It was with great excitement when approaching Queenstown when Annie could see the mountains and the snow. We had been travelling in cloud for some time and she wanted to be the one to spot something first. 

Sean was awake by this time too. It was 3pm local time when we touched down. About 3 hours forward from time at home.

After getting our Rossi work boots cleaned in Quarantine we boarded the shuttle to Blue Peak Apartments. Talk about lush. We have the mountain view of the Gondola going up to Bob’s Peak. We dumped the bags and walked into Central Queenstown which took us a maximum of 5 minutes. It’s so very convenient for us. We gathered our ski gear, our jackets and pants, traded in our voucher for the lift passes and grabbed some tea. The skis were delivered to the apartment.

While picking up our lift passes we found that as of this season that unless I have skis or board strapped to my feet, I am unable to have access to the ski lift. There have been too many incidents of broken legs from foot traffic jumping off the lift at the top of the run and not being able to clear the chair in time as they sink into the snow. The result has been broken legs. So while I am feeling a little devastated about not being able to access the mountain, a possibility of a  broken leg is much more the worse case scenario. One of the shots I dearly wanted to get was of all of us at the very top of the Black Diamond Run with the view of the Landscape all around us. I have to bin that thought now L

By this time I was getting a very tired headache, Annie was starting to get very weary and Sean was due his next dose of decongestant. The kids and I walked back up to our apartment while Kym shopped for breakfast and immediate supplies. On our way back I found a Starbucks and had my first ice coffee for the day. Funny how that headache backed off a bit.

I have got all the clothes and thermals and camera/GoPro gear laid out ready for tomorrow as we board the bus to The Remarkables at 8.20am. The kids are just wriggling with excitement to be out on and in the snow tomorrow. It’s going to be such a huge sensory experience for them. They’ve got ski lessons first up. Kym’s skied in his younger days so he reckons he’ll pick it up after falling over a couple of times. Hope I have the camera on him when he does.

I was in bed by 10pm local time (about 7pm home) and I’ve woken about 12.30am. Bugga it. So I might as well blog and work on some pics.

Cya.