WEEK 25, 26, 27: TIME OFF & NEW ZEALAND #22

Airline Prep

So finally I have arrived in New Zealand and what a great feeling it is to be here!

After exams I had two and a half weeks completely free to enjoy myself and I can honestly say I couldn't have packed much more into my schedule, I didn't have a dull day. Thankfully the weather was excellent almost every day which made it easy to find something to do. I saw a lot of my friends and family and had some nice trips out to the beach, London, Brighton, a few rounds of golf, a couple well earned nights out and even managed to squeeze a couple of cricket matches in which felt good.

A well timed hook for 6

pottering around in the field

chilling on the beach

actually warm enough to go in the water

bit of plane spotting @ Heathrow

The time absolutely shot by and before I knew it I was packing my bags and heading off to Heathrow. I struggled to get much into my suit cases due to the strict weight restriction. We were given a maximum mass of 30 kg which is not a lot to live on for eight months, especially if that includes all your uniform, flight bag and equipment. I think after that I have a pair of jeans and tracksuits and about five shirts. My dad has kindly organised a cargo company to take the rest of my clothes and a few extra things out for a price of about £180 which should take about a week to arrive so once that comes I'll be well set up for the next few months.

our fine carriage awaiting our arrival

our flight (me a few rows back with an emergency exit seat I managed to scrounge. so much leg room!)

our flight departing Heathrow (great picture mum)

We flew with Emirates on the sublime beast that is the Airbus 380, which I have been longing to fly on for ages! Out of the seventeen of us travelling, nine were on my flight and the rest on a later one. We all met at the check in desk and eventually said goodbye to our parents and headed off on our journey.

DJ & I early into the flight

down town Dubai

me on the A380 flight deck

We had stop overs in Dubai and Sydney then landed at Aukland and met up with the rest of our group where a bus picked us up and drove us to Clearways in Hamilton. We had a seven and a bit hour wait in Dubai so we decided to go out and have a look round for a bit. It was the early hours of the morning so nothing was open but it was still good to do a bit of sight seeing.

on the stand in Dubai

tallest building in the word had to be seen

a rather famous hotel

Sydney airport

I thought Emirates were absolutely terrific. Everything ran like clockwork, the service was excellent, it was comfortable, the in-flight entertainment was good and the food was actually very nice. Although it was long it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, I actually enjoyed it and felt sad to leave the aircraft at the end. (the lovely cabin crew may have influenced that a little bit...)

what a pleasure! can you blame me for not wanting to get off??

From door to door it took just over forty hours!! During which I slept for about three at best. The lack of sleep didn't seem to affect me until we got to New Zealand and then if I sat down I genuinely couldn't stop myself falling asleep, I've never felt so tired before!

Cracking view

Coming over the New Zealand coast

the timer

The whole group is in CTC's own accomodation, Clearways. The facility is filled with cadets and the atmosphere seems to be very good. We are not all in the same block but we are all in close proximity of one another. You get your own room which is very nice indeed, and share a mini kitchen, toilet and shower with one other person (in my case DJ which I'm very pleased about). We have been given cars for the first couple of weeks which gives us enough time to find our own which is shared between about four.

We arrived on Friday afternoon and all went out for a meal that evening, had an early night and just crashed! We had the weekend free to recover and get ourselves sorted. After a nice lie in we went into Hamilton to do some shopping and sort ourselves out. The group then had a night out in town which was very fun. Sunday is going to be spent sleeping and preparing for the next couple of weeks where we have a bit of theory to get out the way. Then we will finally be up in the air!

The weather so far is very much like England in February; cold, dark and wet. Hopefully it will pick up soon. At least I got a few weeks of lovely sunshine.