Flying into tomorrow

All flights, connections and baggage worked perfectly and we are sitting by Auckland harbour eating blueberry pancakes on New Years Eve morning. Our brief change of plane in Hong Kong gave us no views of the city as there was thick smog. Watching dawn illuminate the frozen deserts and mountains somewhere north of India was amazing. We thought we might have to divert to Australia on the second long flight as the call went out for 'is there a doctor on the plane?' - I decided my library clinical skills would probably not qualify for that but seemingly a doctor was found!
Weather in Auckland warm but wet at the moment but looks like it could clear up. Off to maritime museum and Shiny has identified a pie restaurant for eating at while we are here.

Off tomorrow

Packing underway - we seem to have more electronic charging devices than anything else. All seats on flights selected and online checking complete. For some bizarre reason when we booked the train tickets from Sheffield to Manchester Airport the cheapest tickets were first class. Not sure that First Class actually exists on a Trans-Pennine train and not expecting silver service but we will see!

At present our NZ friends dire warnings about large brimmed hats, long sleeves and sunscreen seem a little unnecessary as from the NZ forecast I think we will travelling under a rain cloud for the first week. Perhaps my father's hope that they had a 'rookie forecaster' on duty over Christmas will be correct.  

We have uploaded a profile picture.

Countdown...

Well only one week to go before we are off. Getting quite excited - just the little matter of Christmas to sort between now and then!
The weather forcast for the next week looks good at the moment - thick snow stopping us getting as far as the airport would be a tad irritating.
Finish work today (Curly) but Shiny probably working tomorrow too.

Not sure how often we will be able to post on the blog while we are away but if you sign up to follow by email you will get to know when we do.

See you the other side of the equator...