Auckland to Fiji

Saturday 10th December
There is hardly anything to write about today, and no pictures. We seem to have done little except sit in airports - I am sitting in one now.

We checked out of our hotel at 10, and drove to the car rental office to return the car. The car rental office shuttle took us to the airport, where we had an hour to wait until the check-in opened.

Once checked in, we went through security, where I was examined very carefully because of the plastic knife and fork I had stupidly left in my coat pocket. Fortunately for my peace of mind, it did not take long for them to work out that there was only a limited amount of damage to be done with a plastic fork, especially when wielded by a lady no longer in the first flush of youth! Anyway, I played safe and kept my mouth shut. The urge to make some jokey remark was strong, but I fought it - I didn't want to get into more trouble. And I have made sure there is no longer any plastic cutlery in my coat pocket!

Once on the plane, in the centre seat of 3, I found that my neighbour in the aisle seat was a teenage boy who was not willing to switch off his mobile phone. He spoke on it the whole time the plane was taxi-ing and when the take-off started. He hid it from the hostess when she came past. Fortunately, he turned it off before the wheels lifted. Then his little sister or brother, who was sitting in the seat behind me, kicked me in the back during most of the flight.

Anyway, we took off safely and arrived safely in Fiji, where it is hot. Weather is around 30 degrees C, humid and with a chance of thunderstorms. The weather report for Samoa is similar. I have a lot of e-books with me and I can see I may be doing a lot of reading!

We arrived in Fiji at 6 pm local time, and have nearly 8 hours of stop-over; the flight to Samoa leaves at 1.45 am. So I have plenty of time to write this in Fiji airport.

We are scheduled to arrive in Samoa at 4.30 am local time, the previous day, because of crossing the date-line. We cross it again in the opposite direction when we come back to Fiji, then we cross it again when we fly to Los Angeles. So I probably won't know which day of the week it is for a while.

We have Fiji connectivity already, courtesy of Vodafone. But Samoa may be more of a problem - I will probably try for wireless in the hotel. So I'm not sure when the next post will be.

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