On the Thursday morning before this competition we left Hawkes Bay and drove all the way back up to Auckland as we’d booked flights from there to Christchurch for Friday morning, the plan being to spend the day in Christchurch and catch up with friends there and not be in a rush.
We got up to Auckland in time for the pool session, where I was supposed to be picking up my brand new canoe polo boat. It was quite exciting but also annoying that it had arrived at that stage as I was then going to have to bring it on the plane with me to Christchurch and have to get it to the pool myself and things like that, i.e. lots of hassle. However, it turned out that my boat hadn’t actually arrived so I was quite relieved, as was Cam who had been a bit worried about breaking the news to me.
That night we stayed with our friend Andy who lives near the airport and dropped us there in the morning, barely able to see 10 metres ahead of us due to the fog. We checked in for our fight and got set up to wait for the fog to clear for us to get going. We were due to fly at 9.30am and when that time came around we were told it would be 10.30 before we’d be off, but if we wanted we could go back out to the main area whenever we wanted and come back in through security as we pleased. This was quite a shock to us given the security we’ve gotten used to at home. Apparently they’re quite relaxed about internal flights. Then we were told we’d be off at 11.30, but at about 12.30 when the fog still hadn’t cleared our flight was cancelled!
We all rushed off to pick up our checked in luggage and get booked onto the next available flight. While I waited for our bag, Seán queued up at the desk. The policy of the airline was to book all the passengers onto the next available flight in the order of who had paid most for their tickets. Of course we had got the cheapest tickets possible so it turned out we were booked on to a flight at 9am the next morning! That would have resulted in me arriving at the airport when I was supposed to be playing my first game, so we smiled sweetly and asked if we had any other options, or could we go on standby. We were put on the standby list and told to come back at 5pm when they might know more.
There wasn’t much to do in the airport, and no where worth going outside the airport that wasn’t a taxi drive away so we invested in a book each and waited patiently for 5pm to come around. When we went to the desk we were told to come back at 7pm when the delayed inbound flight was due to actually arrive.
We got ourselves a bite of dinner and were still sitting at a long table after finishing when a lady arrived over and asked could she and her husband sit beside us to eat their dinner. Of course that wasn’t a problem and we chatted to her while she waited for her husband to arrive saying how we’d been waiting all day to fly and were in New Zealand for a year etc. When her husband arrived she started writing in a note book. Within 5 minutes of saying hello she gave us a note with their address and numbers on it and we were invited for a dinner of lamb shanks and mashed potatoes the following Wednesday night.
A bit bemused at what had just happened and the fantastic hospitality of the Kiwi’s, we returned to the check in desk. It turned out that we were at the top of the standby list, probably by being the first people to ask about it. While we waited to see if there would be space for us on the flight, two more polo players arrived for their flights and had a good laugh at the fact we were still in the airport. However, luck was to favour us at last that day and we got on a plane at 8pm. When we arrived in Christchurch at last we were too tired to bother with busses and just got a taxi to our friend’s house and went to bed. So much for our social day in Christchurch!
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