Our New Zealand and Australia adventure has come to an end. Over three and a half weeks spent 8500 miles away from home, and we have finally returned. Of course, in the nature of how our trips go, the return flight home just had to throw in one final adventure for us.
As we approached our gate at Auckland International Airport, we found a seat and anxiously awaited to start boarding in the next 10 minutes. The 10 minutes came and went, no boarding process started. No boarding process started in next 5, 10, 15, even 30 minutes. Then a nice notification popped up on our phones – DELAYED.
A bit of dread started to set in. We had a connection to make within two hours of landing in Houston to get home Thursday night. We were on the clock now, and the time just kept slipping away. Eventually, the pilot of our plane came out to address the delay and his announcement went something like…
“Hi everyone – unfortunately we have a bit of a temperamental plane and the satellite system is not working. We have an engineer working on it now and we hope to get it back up and running in the next 10 months. If we can’t get the system up and running, we will need to take time to add another 10,000 gallons of fuel to the plane and we will expect the flight to take longer.”
Wait a second… you’re telling me we’re about to board a “temperamental” plane for the next 15 hours potentially without a satellite system?! I don’t have travel or flight anxiety usually, but for this flight, I think it was valid to have some slight concerns.
15 minutes later, we’re informed the satellite system will not turn on and we’re going to fly without it. Everything is fine.
We eventually board the plane, get settled in our seats, and take off. By this time, the flight is about an hour and a half delayed, estimated flight time of 14 hours, we’re going to have 45 minutes to make our connection in Houston. I hold out hope, Asa tells me I need to face the reality that we’re going to miss our connection.
Thankfully, our flight without a satellite system goes quite smoothly. We arrive to Houston after a solid 5 hours of sleep on the plane, a couple of meals, and a book finished. It’s 5:45pm and our departing flight to Nashville out of Houston is at 6:17pm. I check my email, and sure enough, we already were rebooked to another flight. But that flight wasn’t leaving until the NEXT day… and had a layover!
The night hasn’t even begun yet, surely there is some way we can still make it to Nashville that same day right? This is when I lived my other life for a brief moment as a travel planner. I scoured all the airlines at any nearby airport to find there was a single Southwest flight leaving at 10:30pm that night. We could make that!
BUT Southwest is not a partner of Star Alliance and since they aren’t a partner of Star Alliance, Air New Zealand had no way to book us a ticket with them. Even after my begging and pleading. And so, we were stuck in Houston for one more night. I glumly accepted the hotel and food voucher and we made our way to the hotel shuttle.
If you’re ever given a free hotel by an airline near the Houston International Airport, the Holiday Inn isn’t the worst option. We had a decent meal in the hotel and a clean room, although out of all of the places we stayed during our trip, it did rank at the bottom of our list. No heated towel bars or geothermal pools like our previous stays.
We were exhausted and crashed into bed around 10pm, falling asleep to whatever we could find on the TV. And then – time to wake up! At least, that’s what our body was saying, at 12:30am. The worst souvenir of any trip – jet lag.
With jet lag, you just have to accept it. You put your body through hell, fueling it with caffeine during the day, and forcing yourself to keep your eyes closed at night. Fighting it, thinking about it is just a recipe for failure. (At the time of writing this, I can say we have overcome the jet lag and are back to our central time zone circadian rhythm, thankfully)
We toss and turn throughout the night, I get a couple more hours of sleep around 4:30am just to wake up right at 6:30am for our flight to Atlanta. Back on the shuttle, back to the airport. No delays this time. A short layover in Atlanta, and we’re at our gate to Nashville. Please, please, just let us get on this plane and get home. We were going on about hour 40-something of traveling. And we did. No delays, no lack of satellite systems, no temperamental plane. We were finally heading home.
At 1:30pm Friday afternoon, we touched down at Nashville International Airport. We got both of our bags (WIN!) and my mom picked us up to take us home. (Thanks mom!) We made it. We had a less-than reluctant pup to welcome us back, I think he just fell in love with Grandma giving him treats and two walks a day. But he has since fallen back in love with us.
We had a trip of a lifetime. Memories were created that we will never forget and experiences were had that will never be beat. We hope to return both to New Zealand and Australia one day, but have agreed, there are other places to explore first.
Reflections and Learnings from Australia + New Zealand:
- For our first month-long adventure, we are so grateful to have chosen a place to speak English. Navigating, communicating, and just moving through the day was so much easier compared to having gone somewhere like Italy. Having all traffic and transport signs in English was a big help and used less brain calories for sure.
- Traveling with a car abroad opened up a whole new world of opportunities. No longer did we have to abide by a train or plane schedule. We chose when to leave and it did provide a source of consistency amidst our changing locations day-to-day.
- Seasickness is a real thing for me. I don’t see us ever becoming cruise people.
- Bouldering in well-known places is a MUST moving forward. When we went to a less-known boulder field, the rocks were less than desirable.
- Holy moly – bird sounds were such a noticeable difference from what we have in the States. The bird songs in New Zealand sounded so pretty and added to the experience of being somewhere new each morning.
- Seeing the night sky in a protected light pollution area magnified just how small we are and how much we as humans impact our environment. I don’t think either of us has seen the sky so dark and the stars so bright.
- While America might lack in food compared to some European countries, it beats out New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand and Australia both had a British background in their local food cuisine but excelled with anything international like Thai, Japanese, Indian, etc.
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