Today was a travel day, we are headed to Christchurch, New Zealand for the next phase of our trip. A taxi picked us up at the apartment at 5:25am. We went to the airport with a nice lady from New Zealand who was a professor in Auckland and was in New Caledonia administering an English proficiency test. She was originally from Nepal, then moved to Darjeeling, India, Malaysia and finally ended up in New Zealand. Her father was a gurkha soldier who was in the British army. We shared stories with her.
We had breakfast at the airport. The flight to Auckland was fine but the landing was a little bumpy. In Auckland we went through immigration, completely automated, and then through customs. New Zealand is very strict about food coming into the country so we had to declare the food we were bringing in and be interviewed about it. Our food was on the allowed list so we quickly exited customs.
We then had to drop off our luggage for the continued journey onto Christchurch. Air New Zealand has automated the baggage drop off process. Unfortunately both our bags are overweight by about 3.5kg or 8lbs total. It was going to cost us about NZ$700 or about $450 for the extra weight. We got an agent to override the extra weight in one bag and we took stuff out of the other bag and either put it in the backpack or threw it away.
We walked over to the domestic terminal and then relaxed in a restaurant while we waited for our flight. On the plane Rick sat next to a nice New Zealand couple who told him about some places we should visit.
After we arrived we collected our suitcases and took a taxi to our Airbnb. That evening we walked around Christchurch and went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. After dinner, we came back to the apartment, watched rugby, and tried to figure out the rules. No luck figuring out the rules. We were able to stay up relatively late because it is two hours later in New Zealand than it is New Caledonia.
Rugby is huge here. The Air New Zealand safety video features the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby team. Also last night New Zealand lost to England in the Rugby World Cup. Expectations were high, with the All Blacks having won the two prior world cup challenges, so everyone we’re seeing has a pretty long face today.