The Last Post
We returned to Queenstown for one more night after our trip to Te Anau and were a little surprised to find the temperature had dropped almost 20 degrees in three days! The snow on the mountains was beautiful but a lack of warm clothes meant it was definitely time to go. Unfortunately leaving turned out to be a little more difficult than anticipated.
We had already been warned by a guy in the hostel that Queenstown airport is unreliable; because of the changeable weather incoming flights often land at Invercargill and outgoing flights are cancelled as a result. So we were a little anxious when the day dawned cloudy and wet, but we rang the airport and nothing had been cancelled as yet. On arriving however we discovered that two flights to Auckland were now cancelled and ours was 'suspended'; it would depend on whether the plane could land as to whether or not we'd be going to Fiji that day. After an anxious two hour wait, during which the weather cleared and clouded over again several times and the Qantas staff began re-ticketing the more pushy customers, the plane made it down to cheers from the check-in queue.
However the fun wasn't over. After a record check-in and boarding time we were all seated and ready to go when the pilot announced that due to low-lying cloud we would be waiting a while until take-off. This turned out to be over an hour stuck in our seats; eventually the clouds failed to clear and we took off anyway. For me this was made considerably more uncomfortable by the large elderly man next to me who committed all possible crimes of air-travel: he stank, overflowed into my seat and sniffed/sneezed loudly in a disgusting manner every few minutes. All I could do was direct my aircon unit at him to try and blow the smell back and spend the whole flight with my neck craning away from him.
We finally reached Auckland only to be held up again on the runway waiting for more bad weather to clear. However we finally took off and made it to Fiji, where we were greeted by Fijian men singing and playing the guitar and cries of 'bula' (meaning welcome). It was a huge relief to be there after the trials of the day.
This will be the last post as we are now on 'Fiji time', meaning that we are relaxing and taking things slow. It's amazing how much a five and a half month holiday can take it out of you. We're back shortly (25th March for those who are interested) so you can call us and find out how the last part went!
Emily (and Chris)
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