Happy landings

A n early start withJulie picking me up at the ungodly hour of 5am to get me to the airport. Better to be early than late for the 8.15 departure. Everything went like clockwork both before and during the flight, and on arrival at Wellington airport. Finding the shuttle bus to get me to the car rental place was a bit tricky but I got there in the end.

The peak hour Wellington traffic was a bit of a shock, given that I had just flown 1/3 of the way across the Tasman in the time that it took me in stop-start peak hour traffic to get across the city and on to the highway. The Toyota Yaris hybrid was a pleasure to drive, the only challenge being the lack of a GPS. Instead, the rental company had supplied me with a fairly useless phone holder. After the third occasion that the phone fell out and landed under my feet while I was driving I decided that, comparatively speaking, it was safer to navigate with it on the seat beside me. Definitely not recommended. It was my first experience of the Transmission Gully motorway, and it certainly made the trip northwards from Wellington far easier. Unsurprisingly perhaps the weather during the drive varied from mild and sunny to strong winds with absolutely torrential rain.

On my arrival Elspeth and I chatted and snacked for quite a while before she took me the 150m or so down the road to meet Judi and Graham Whichter, my hosts for the next eight days. Elspeth’s house extension is only just at the lock-up stage, so Judi and Graham generously offered their self-contained apartment to me, a total stranger, for the duration of my visit. The apartment is beautifully set up, very spacious, and more than adequate for my needs.

The pleasant surprises weren’t over yet. Elspeth and I went out to dinner at a popular Italian restaurant nearby at Waikanae Beach. At the next table was a young couple with whom we chatted for all of 30 seconds, mainly about the generous size of the fellow’s pizza he’d ordered. They finished their meal and left while Elspeth and I chatted on for another half-hour or so. We got up to leave and pay the bill, only to be told by the waiter that there was nothing owing. The friendly young couple had evidently told the staff what nice people they thought we were and had picked up our whole restaurant bill! A great finish to the day. Czytaj więcej