CHC to SYD

Tuesday 28th January

The day (?) started at 3:00am, with the kids being woken/rolled out of their beds about 30 minutes later. We made really good time to the airport (deserted roadways really helping out there), gave our hire car one final check for anything left behind - and then sought out the departure terminal.

We walked into a large crowd at our check-in section - surgical masks making a fairly regular appearance amongst the queuing surgeons fellow travellers. I was feeling a trifle smug at our relatively compact set of luggage (all thanks to "Tetris" Jen) - with other families apparently hauling the entire contents of their home with them. Our check-in staff member seemed almost sobbingly relieved to be serving us (the lady next to her was dealing with another family doing their best impersonation of John McEnroe - "what do you mean the bag is too heavy?!!").

Our flight, or at least the descent into Sydney, was reassuringly smooth (different to the shudderingly difficult approach to Auckland). Our 7:40am arrival (5:40am NZ time) meant we drove our car - still covered in New Year's ash - straight into Sydney peak-hour. Awesome.

The heat and humidity immediately struck us, with the overnight temps here equalling some of the hotter daily temps in NZ. I'm currently typing this at 6:50am (thanks to the 2 hour time delay here), with the temperature somewhere in the mid 20s and the humidity north of 95%.

We experienced a real rainstorm last night - as opposed to the grey drizzle we had copped on the two days we got rain (yep, we got lucky with weather). Filling up the car was a revelation (almost hugging the gent at the service station), approximately a dollar a litre cheaper here. Also - the roads have multiple lanes! Okay - so there's not the winding coastal roads through primal forests of cabbage palms and tree ferns, with vistas of turquoise waters butting up against emerald green hills filled with sheep indulgently grazing - I'll grant you that.

We're going to miss the gorgeous natural landscapes of staggering variety, the youthful thinking of the people (creative/inventive types clearly punching above their weight in terms of population), as well as those sweet, sweet car snacks (pineapple lumps and chocolate fish - I am looking at you).