New Zealand Trip Day 1 - Post by Stuart

NZ Trip Day 1

We decided to stay overnight at Tamworth to save getting up at some ungodly hour to make it to the plane, we had the 6.30am out and... well it can take some of us a little longer to get ready than others. It worked out fine and I must admit the Golf Links Motel was a good choice, nice bed, good shower and the road noise was next to nothing, it may not have all the bells and whistles of the Power House but for $119 a night it was money well spent. So we got to Tamworth air port a little early and everything flowed well with the local guys managing to book our baggage right through to Auckland, even though we flew Qantas and Air New Zealand and yes our bags were waiting for us when we got there...always a bonus. We scoffed down a toasted sanga and got on our way.

It was startling how dry things looked from the air, not much green until you get down into the SE corner of the plains and then only a small percentage of what you would expect to see this time of year. In true form the cloud hung to the eastern side of the ranges.

We got into Sydney around 8.30am and needed to kill a few hours so we done what most people do.....checked through and had a good look around the duty free shops. The bottle shop has an impressive range. Emelia has a liking for Jim Beam, it appears the good brewers in the US have heard and mixed a blend just for her.

The duty free guys also had and impressive range of Canadian Club, something I love and something you don't see a lot of apart from the bog stock blend at the local Liquorland.

We also found this budget buy Johnnie Walker.

I have to admit it, well .. mainly because Jodi will also be writing in this blog and will no doubt take the piss out of me for it too, but you see I'm not the best flyer, I tend to get a little unstable........ well to give you an idea I'm not sure if this is welcoming us into NZ or a scan of my lower intestine.

Anyway that is the boring stuff out of the way, we start tomorrow with a Sky walk at Skycity Motel (where we are staying), that should be great fun, I'm a bit worried as you see flying and heights are about the only two things that really bother me. We have bungy planned for next week so I guess I best just harden up and get over it hey.