Leaving Home

 Saturday morning was spent getting things ready for our departure.

Taking the rubbish to the tip, mowing the lawns and generally securing the house while we are away.

We set off around 1:30pm for Christchurch and had a leisurely drive to the Airport Birches Motel which was our accommodation until early morning for the flight to Auckland. A pretty basic place but perfect for what we wanted.

We had planned on having dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant (Tanoshi) in the centre of the city but, even at 5:30 pm, they had no tables free. Bummer, we need to book next time. We walked around the block and got into Chi Wah Wah (a modern Mexican restaurant/bar). It too was very busy but we got a table as long as we vacated by 6:45. No problem, we ordered our mains and a beer and were out of there by 6:30.

Back at the motel, we were in bed early and set our alarm for 3:30 am. As expected, we had a broken nights sleep and woke up just before the alarm. A quick shower and we were off to the Airpark Canterbury long-term carpark to drop the car off and they drove us to the airport in their shuttle. Too easy, just an early start. We checked in for our flight at around 4:30am and were officially on-our-way.

The flight to Auckland was straightforward and we just had to make our way to the international terminal for the flight to Hobart.

Auckland airport is getting bigger every time we go there and we didn't even recognise where the shuttle bus from the domestic terminal dropped us off. Then it was a long walk to Gate 15 for our departure at 9:00am.

We bought a duty-free bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin to get us through the two weeks in Tassie.

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