G & J away from home

Sunday, 10 July 2016

There's a point in the trip when the focus changes from holidaying to heading home and no matter how many stops or visits or things to see are involved in getting home I am always conscious from the moment it starts that this is the homeward journey.

In this case it was this morning when we got up at Dave and Sharon's place in Bengeo.  Drive to Heathrow (with that lottery of how fast the M25 would be moving), 13-hour flight to LAX,  four nights with Pete and Marilynne, 11-hour flight to Auckland, overnight at Anne and Lloyd's, and a 7-hour drive to Palmerston North. Yes, we were heading home!

The rental car drop-off went smoothly (but, come to think of it, so did the last one which resulted in a NZ$4,000+ charge turning up on our credit card) and we caught the shuttle to Terminal 2 - the Queen's Terminal it tells me.  As we noticed when we came here two weeks ago to see Beth and Marianne off, the whole access are to the terminal doors is open to the elements - not unpleasant in summer but I imagine it will be a bit chilly in winter.

Terminal 2

As we also noticed last time we were here, not all the lifts got to the same floors and so I was not exactly surprised there was a delay in Gary catching up with me after I was able to squeeze on to the first lift we came to but he had stayed behind because there was very little room left.

But I waited and waited and finally took a photo of where I expected him to appear, since it was clearly going to be a while.

The lifts at the departures level of Terminal 2

Once Gary had appeared (just as I was mentally reviewing the futility of taking to one of the lifts to look for him) we went into the terminal and checked in on the nifty self-check-in terminal but once the bags were tagged and ready to be 'dropped' Gary has some last-minute repacking to do.

Repacking

It looks like a nice, out-of-the-way spot but it was in the operating range of the door sensor so every time Gary moved the huge doors whipped open.

Security was no problem (nothing like as difficult to get through for Gary as Southampton had been) and we didn't have long to wait before we started off for our gate.  I do like the helpful walking times on the gate signs - and even more when the gate we're heading for turns out not to be the most distant one.

Gate signs with walking times

Although the flight time was supposed to be 13 hours, as with the Hong Kong to Heathrow leg which was supposed to be a similar duration) the time given once we were aboard was 11 hours - but the arrival time didn't seem to be much different.  I cannot get my head around what's happening here.

The plane was fairly full and we had a 'Sky Couch' row in which there is no leg room behind our feet and, in fact, our feet couldn't be placed directly below our knees because the flaps of the 'couch' don't really fold down out of the way.  And, of course, I had the mad reclining person in front of me - didn't even wait until we'd finished take off to get that seat reclined.  The sooner they stop reclining in seats the happier flights will be for the majority.

Arrival in LAX was not only into the nice new terminal building but processing was fast apart from the instruction to put my forefinger on the scanner to check my fingerprints - Forefinger! Forefinger!  - and then the man held up four fingers.  Ohhh!  Four fingerS!  In both the immigration and customs the people were helpful and friendly (the four fingers confusion notwithstanding) - we couldn't decide if this was a new policy or the evening shift were just the happy crew.  (And what a contrast to our two arrivals in the UK.)

Though we didn't have our map or the details of the shuttle company to hand we went with The Force and strolled along outside the terminal until we thought we recognised the place where we'd caught the shuttle last time.  Yes, indeed, this was our shuttle, and we just had to wait utill one turned up going our way.

Waiting for the Super Shuttle

On the shuttle ride we met James (from Wellington) and Hannah (from Laguna Niguel and Christchurch) who were visiting with her parents before returning to New Zealand.  What a small world.

At Pete's we found, as advised, that Sooty was minding the house.  After his initial consideration of us as possible intruders he decided we looked like we were staying and decided to give us a exceedinly vocal welcome.

Nighty night, Sooty.

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