It all began with a stormy Saturday morning. I drove my puny "little tin box" to the airport in driving rain and howling winds to catch a flight to Welly. The check in was fine and the charming ground crew told me to expect some delay which I do not think it was an issue.
While sitting in the waiting lounge, I noticed the pilots hovered back and forth from their office to the "pencil sized" plane. In the end the pilots decided it was too much of hassles and they just sat in the plane. I saw the baggage crew loaded our luggages into the compartment so I thought the plane will be flying off soon. After half an hour from my scheduled flight, the pilots alighted from the plane and walked straight back the office. A few minutes later, they made an announcement over the intercom telling us the flight has been cancelled.
So everyone rushed to the counters to make arrangements for alternative travelling plans. Other than travel by land to City of Sails airport or cancel your flight totally, there was not much of alternatives really. I opted for land travel. I could have cancelled my trip altogether, but I made my promise to a group of people in Welly so I need to be there at all costs.
And so the poor charming ground crew had to scramble herself to reschedule the passengers' flight and arranged for ground transport for the stranded travellers. The phone was ringing non stop and I really pity the poor girl who manned the fort by herself. The pilots were totally useless, all they did was sitting on their butts at the back office and did not bother to relieve their colleague nor help stranded passengers.
Another half an hour later, I found myself and 9 other passengers packed up in a taxi van and we bounded to City of Sails. By the time, we left the town, the storm turned into a full fledge weather bomb. The road was slippery and the winds pushed the van off the road from time to time. The driver had to grip the steering so hard to prevent the van fron veering off the main road. At that time, I felt like a refugee trying to escape from the hurricane that is making a landfall.
Halfway through the journey, we discovered that the main highway was closed due to an accident (what to do? people here do not drive properly). The south bound traffic has been totally cut off. The driver had no choice but to turn back and take a back country road so we can continue the journey. All went well except that we were stuck behind a large truck most of the time. So we travelled along with an average speed of 50km/h. By the time I reached City of Sails airport, I missed my flight the second time because the driver took longer than expected to reach the airport. But it is not the driver's fault anyway. Kudos to him for keeping up his nerve and drove us safely to our destination.
And so I had to wait another one and half hours to catch the next earliest flight. While waiting in the departure gates, Air NZ kept making announcements that all the inbound and outbound flights to my town were cancelled. As if this is not enough, they delayed my flight again for another half and hours.
So by the time I reached Welly, it was past four in the afternoon. Normally a journey such as this will take me one and half hours. But on that stormy day, I ended up spending eight hours to complete the trip. With that amount of time, I would have travelled half way to a place near my home country...such is the hassles of travelling in NZ...oh well that's the choice I made to come to live here...can't complain...
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