We're here!

After months and weeks of planning, preparation and packing, not to mention extensive preparations of our house for our home-exchangers, it was finally time to begin our trip. We were 99% packed the day before and planned to leave at 10:30am to meet Glenda, who had flown in from New Zealand on Friday night and spent the night in a motel not far from the airport in Denver.

At about 10am, Mike took a final look at the Air New Zealand itinerary and realized that our plane left a full two hours earlier than we remembered, because of a change Air New Zealand had made in July (we bought our tickets in April). We both sort of freaked out since we expected to have lunch with Glenda and then take our time before she dropped us off in at the airport and then drove herself up to Estes Park to “take over” our house.

We hurriedly (but without any panic) threw our stuff in the car, ran through our final list of things to do, and drove to Glenda's hotel where we loaded her bags in the car and then drove on to DIA. After telling Tina (our Chevy Traverse) how to guide Glenda to our house with the nav system, we said our goodbyes and went in to check our bags and go through security.

We had plenty of time to relax before our flight to San Francisco, where we had a four hour layover before catching our flight to Auckland. Our plane left on time and we arrived at SFO where we walked around some for exercise, had a beer, and then got on the Boeing 777-200 which took off about 9pm.

The flight was scheduled to take 13:15 hours, but soon after taking off, the excellent LCD displays in the back of the seats in front of us projected a flight time of about 12:20 hours, which was pretty accurate. They served us a very decent meal a couple of hours into the flight and then we tried to catch some sleep for awhile.  Fortunately the third seat in our row was unoccupied so we were able to spread out a bit, but still sleeping upright is far from ideal. Susan tried sleeping on the floor, but a flight attendant was quick to tap her shoulder and get her back into the seat. Mike slept through all this. We were served a pretty decent breakfast meal and then only had a couple of hours before landing in Auckland at about 5:45am local time. It was great to finally see the lights of the North Island below.

The flight to our final destination, Blenheim (northeast part of the South Island, Marlborough District), was scheduled to leave about 8am, but first we had to get our 3 bags and go through customs. After going through customs, we rechecked the bags for the flight to Blenheim and then chose to walk the 15 minutes to the terminal from which our last leg would leave.

It was our first real exposure to the cool, relatively humid air of New Zealand, and the sky was just starting to get light before sunrise. At the terminal we got some coffee, some NZ dollars from the ATM, and then something to eat. There was no free WiFi at the airport, but there was a public computer kiosk which we used to let people back home know we’d arrived safely. Then we learned our flight was delayed, later finding out that the 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch the day before had caused their airport to close and created some ripples that disrupted travel a little. After only a 30 minute delay, our flight boarded. We were very surprised that there was basically zero security for domestic flights in NZ! No metal detectors, removing shoes, x-ray machines or anything. Just hand them a boarding pass and get on the plane, a smaller prop model that carried only 45 passengers.

By now it was light enough to see, but we quickly climbed up into and then above the clouds and didn't see much until we started our descent into Blenheim after about an hour. We flew in over the ocean, coast, and then green farmland and vineyards and then landed at the very small airport (Blenheim only has about 27,000 population).

We got off the plane, walked across the tarmac into the terminal and there was Mick, Glenda's husband, waiting to take us back to their house to get settled in. Although we'd talked on the phone a few times (both Skype and landline) in the previous few months, we'd never met, but it still felt like we were already good friends (a good thing to feel when you're trading not only your homes, but your car keys for three months!).

Mick drove us back to the house where we dropped off our bags, freshened up a bit, had some conversation, then lunch, and then Mick offered to take us into town to show us around. We saw “downtown,” the grocery stores, and other places we'd be frequenting during our stay as Blenheim “locals.”

After a quick tour of the town, Mick took us out into the country a little ways, showing us some beautiful spots where he's fished, camped, etc. He took us out to Wairau Bar, White's Bay, and some other very scenic spots. Not just great scenery, but also saw several birds we'd never even heard of, much less seen! What a great appetizer for New Zealand!

Because of our just completed 31 hour trip with very little sleep, we were pretty exhausted, so Mick took us back home where he made us a very nice dinner of teriyaki pork. Shortly afterwards, at about 8pm, we turned in for the night.

Monday morning we were up early after a jetlagged and fitful sleep, but drank coffee, covered last minute details with Mick before taking him to the Blenheim airport at noon to fly to Colorado. There was also time for an introductory visit from our neighbors. David and Yvonne are a friendly couple from the UK, who, like Glenda, moved to New Zealand to be near their kiwi grandchildren.

After we dropped Mick off, Mike got into the driver's seat and drove Mick's Nissan Terrano (diesel) out of the airport and headed out west of Blenheim in some low traffic areas to adjust to driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Kind of nervewracking and stressful to stay on the left, especially on turns or roundabouts (traffic circles).

We drove out as far as Wairau Valley where we pulled off on a dirt road to watch some sheep with their lambs and some birds. The air was filled with “baas” from soprano to bass, and the trees rang with songs of unknown birds We wandered around grinning as the realization that our adventure had really begun.