So the weeks of non stop craziness just continued till the end.
Our shipping company spent Thursday and Friday packing and then our container ends up arriving on the back of the wrong truck, meaning we can't get it off the truck meaning its useless.
We get promised the right container at 8am on Sat (7th Sept) and so everyone disappears. Only for us to receive a call a few hours later saying they can't get a crew together and it will have to be Monday morning. Basically leaving us high and dry, without any solution, and in a house unsafe for kids. And so late on Friday the kids were run down to Tash's parents and we ended up with Olive's baptism and our farewell BBQ taking place on Sunday surrounded by billions of boxes. We got through it though, and massive thanks to all who came and especially those who helped clear our barn and loft space!
On Monday we filled the road with a container, loaded the container (shit the bed, these boys were good! ) cleaned and tidied (again, thanks to those who helped!) took Harry to hia four month foster home, and finally at 8pm disappeared for Tash's parents.
On Tuesday I sorted all the jobs I was intending to have done Monday and admitted my day of relaxing was never going to happen before we leave. Those shippers really fucked us up.
And then we caught a plane. 10pm from Heathrow to Singapore, a 12 hour flight. Kids were great. Alfie fell asleep on take off. Esme shouted. The airline was amazing, staff did everything they could for us, and of course everything was on the house. I have erased check in from my memory, but lets say Esme hit 6pm over-tired meltdown right as we reached the front of the queue with us juggling 10 items to check in! My Dad, Dawn and Dale saw us off which was lovely. And then this shit got real!
We had a few hours at Singapore airport followed by a 7 hour flight to Brisbane, Aus. I had prepared for a 10 hour flight so this was a right bonus. Again we were with Singapore airways, and again Alfie fell asleep on take off and Esme shouted the place down. Thankfully they had given us a middle row of four seats to ourselves on these flights, god only knows how we'd have managed in just our purchased three!
Again this ended up being an evening takeoff, and once more the kids were ace. And when Alfie woke 'early' an on demand entertainment system meant he could watch Room On The Broom 8 times back to back whilst Tash sipped Singapore Slings!
And finally came a few hours at Brisbane and then a 3 hour flight to Welly. Back onto proper cattle class small planes like those we're used to when flying to Gib. And that wasn't the end of the Gib similarities as our landing, and more specifically the approach, brought many heart in mouth moments from the huge gusts blowing across the bay. We were squeezed into three seats, really missed our A380 luxury, but the journey had killed the kids so bad they both slept pretty much the whole way - Alfie falling asleep on take off, something I'm sure he has now done on every single flight he has been on in his young life.
We squeezed into two cabs, took a five minute cab ride and arrived at our 10 week home in Miramar. It's a lovely house, and will be perfect for us. Although only two bed, the open plan layout gives us more space for the kids to run about in than we had in the UK.
Our NZ adventure begins here!...
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