Day One: Travelling to NZ from Australia

Day one of my trip started at the ungodly hour of 5:15am, when my alarm went in order for me to get up and leave the flat to get to the airport on time. My flatmate who I completely roped into driving me there, was rather confused. "I'm driving you to the airport, is that what's happening" were I believe the words used.

Yep, and you did. Thank you so much :D

Arriving the requested 3 hours before my flight was somewhat unnecessary since the Virgin Australia counters weren't actually open 3 hours ahead of the flight. In fact, they hadn't begun their day yet, and only did around 6:35am, 20 minutes after I'd gotten then. So, note for next time: turn up 2.5 hours before flight. However being 2nd in the queue had it's benefits, since I got an exit row aisle, and that baby was SWEET. The leg room was AMAZING. I'll be turning up for my home flight that early too, simply because the bus I'm taking to Christchurch to catch my flight gets me there THAT early, and I'm hoping for a good seat on the way home too.  My flight details from AirNZ didn't quite make it across to Virgin Australia though, since I'd paid for luggage+food with my ticket, but was completely ignored when breakie came around. This might sound petty, but damn it I'd paid extra and started my day ridiculously early.

Arrived in Dunedin, all good, was at the end of the customs line, that's OK, I read a book. Got a seat on a shuttle, all good - took the long way around. Finally made it to my friend E's place at 4:30pm after arriving at 2:30pm. Was so wonderful to see her :) I was fed, and then got taken around a tour of Dunedin, which I fail to have ANY pictures of because I didn't take my camera. How silly was I!! We went to the beach, around the bottom of the Otago Peninsula, and up the top of Signal Hill, where I got a very good idea of how big Dunedin actually is. It had seemed rather small, but it's not. In fact, the 2011 census states 126,000 people live here, and I bet that shrinks and swells during the university year A LOT.

It also didn't get dark for AGES. Hello Liz, we're much further south now. The sun was still hitting the top of the tree next door at 9pm. In fact, it was still light until 10pm. AWESOME!!