'One down, one to go!' was apparently my brothers comment as the Browns picked me up and bundled me into the car early on Sunday morning (he has two sisters, in case you didn't guess or know!) We said our last goodbyes' to Billys family over Crispy Kremes, and were on our way.
Flying emirates was like using a wholly different mode of transport to Easyjet - no queues, lots of free food, and thankfully no orange coats in sight. In flight entertainment contained a wide variety of options to keep us occupied and Billy soon learnt the lesson not to take me on at Battleships ever again. Our stopover in Dubai was brief and involved running through a seemingly endless terminal where everything looked the same - most disorientating! - to join the queue for our next flight. Our company for the next flight was a mother and daughter who perhaps should have booked first class, as they both seemed to rather enjoy stretching out - Billy had legs in his lap/face for most of the journey! Billy watched Cars and Dumbo, according to him because he didn't want to upset the little girl, but I have my doubts. We enjoyed another glorious stopover in Singapore and settled back down for another 7 hours of the same. My seat seemed to like falling apart whenever I wanted to recline, but eventually we got to sleep. Brisbane was a welcome stop, however it was here that we discovered our first loss of the trip - Billy's phone, which had been lost with surprising speed even for him. We eventually arrived, after yet more Friends episodes in Auckland at around 2pm (or 3am home time!). Propping ourselves up on caffeine tablets we took the shuttle to the Roxburghs. We were surprised by the temperature and humidity, a big change from grey old England! We'd no sooner had a glass of water and a sit down than Billy managed to volunteer himself to be part of the Meadowbank Misfits cricket team for the evening, reasoning we needed to try to stay up anyway! Cricket whites were sadly lacking from our packing list, but luckily no one else on the team had any either. The score was 144 runs to 99 after 14 overs, and we returned victorious. Despite a lack of practice and the fact it was 5.30am for us, Billy managed to get in a few decent bowls and catches, surprising both himself and me! We returned home for yummy quiche, salad and tomato bread with watermelon for afters - a pleasant change from wonderful airplane food! We crashed out at 9 ish and woke up around 7.30 this morning, when I started writing this blog =) Not sure we're entirely adapted yet - but seem to be getting there!
Plan for today is to have a wander around Auckland and get silly Billy a new phone.
Hope you enjoyed our first, rather in depth, update. I've attached some of the cricket pictures! Oh, and Billy 'enjoying' his earliest subway ever (I think it was around 4am!)
See you soon!
xxx
sounds excellent. its quite obvious why billy played well,an exhausted english man will beat a bunch of hobbits anyday! its looks brilliantly sunny there, still a bit miserable here. the grass is most definately greener on the other side. xx
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