2am, Tuesday 18th Feb. I’m in the wide awake club, listening to the dulcet tones of Angus’s snoring. I thought I may as well do something useful and write the first blog.

Here are a few observations about our journey here:

1. The landing into Heathrow from Glasgow was awful, thanks to really strong gales. Children crying. Me crying (almost).
2. Getting the free transfer from terminal 5 to terminal 3 and then the Hotel Hoppa Bus to the Travelodge did not go according to plan. 2 hours, a train and a taxi later we got to our room.
3. Signage in Heathrow Airport is baaaad.
4. Still can’t get our heads around why the plane flies NORTH to take us “Down Under”!
5. The seats on the Boeing 777-300 are narrower than you would think – not great for an 11 hour, then 12 hour flight.
6. We had a ‘fun’ lap of the terminal at Los Angeles airport to go through immigration and security, all to get back onto the same plane and same two seats as we were in to start with. Although I did get told by the immigration guy tht I had a good photo, so not all bad ;0)
7. The service on Air New Zealand is great and the food isn’t bad. It was good being able to order drinks and snacks through the touch screen TV.
8. We took full advantage of the above on the first flight :0)
9. Landed at Auckland at 6.45am on Monday 17th in a tired daze, but soon perked up when we saw the blue sky and sunshine.

I don’t want to make each blog entry too long, so I’ll save our first day shenanigans for the next one.

Not long now, Di will be starting our latest blog. Were back off to New Zealand