finally in nz
I got tears in my eyes as the wheels touched down. Between Hong Kong and New Zealand’s covid approaches you had 2 of the most closed-off countries in the world. Going between the 2 was at some points in time totally impossible due to lack of flights, at other times an actual lottery to get a spot in quarantine, and the rest of the time theoretically maybe possible but at the cost of anywhere from 2-5 total weeks locked in a hotel room. I am so grateful that nothing happened during these 2 years which forced me to come home, and that I was able to wait for the NZ border rules to relax. It was awesome to step off the plane and be welcomed by the lovely kiwi customs folks, handed a few RAT tests and be sent on my way.
I spent the first few days catching up with my cousins (including meeting one of their new babies!), and just enjoying the NZ sunshine, chicken sushi, cafe treats and relaxed vibes. I then jumped on another plane down to home, landing in Tauranga to have all my immediate family who live there greet me at the airport, cue more tears. I was working remotely from NZ which meant a weird workday starting just after lunch and stretching late into the evening. It was worth it for the morning beach and mount walks and time with family around the edges. I made the most of the weekends trying to catch up with friends (almost everyone seemed to have covid just after I arrived!), swimming in the sea, hiking and chilling with my family. Cathay was allowing Pilots to apply for unpaid leave at this time and we managed to get April and May approved. We were therefore expecting him to join me in NZ early April, but his last filght of March was a Sydney flight where he was only rostered to work on the way there, he got the green light to get out in Aussie instead of flying back to HK and jumped on a flight to NZ right away. I managed to catch covid in my last few days of work before my vacation so I did my 7 days of isolation while tidying up my last bits and pieces of work. I had head-cold kinda symptoms, a lot of coughing and sneezing etc but the worst of it only lasted a few days. NZ isolation rules allow you to go outside to exercise so I took advantage of the beach nearby, between that, the deck, the garden and the much-larger-than-HK sized house, it was really a pretty easy “quarantine”.
Finally my 1 month long vacation started, I’d been pretty useless with taking vacation during covid as it felt like a waste to use holiday days to stay in Hong Kong so I was in desperate need of some time off! We planned to use the time to get around NZ and catch up with all our friends and extended family and then head overseas for some travel.
Our trip began in Nelson with my mum and her partner where we had lots of yummy meals and good wine and a bit of walking/hiking (I still didn’t have a ton of energy post-covid), and one of the highlights was an e-bike self-guided winery tour including one of the best (maybe THE best) cheese cakes ever.
We then flew across to Wellington and met up with my old uni girl mates for a weekend in an AirBnB with epic views over the water and the airport, we pretty much just talked and ate and drank for 2 days, it was perfection. We also snuck in time for some cafes and card games with my brother and his girlfriend before we picked up our hire car and began the road trip north. First stop was Levin at our friends farm, catching up with them and their 3 kids, eating a classic kiwi sunday roast, then touring their new strawberry farm the next morning before we headed off.
We wound our way slowly north to the Hawkes Bay, with an all important stop for an award-winning pie along the way. We headed up Te Mata Peak for those ever stunning views then each separately caught up with friends from when we used to live there. Finally, way too late in the evening we eventually found our way to the countryside AirBnB, in the absolute middle of nowhere, a stunning spot we wished we’d had more time to enjoy. The next day we headed to Napier to catch up with our old crossfit crew for a couple of nights of more food, drinks, laughs and games. We also managed to get in a little flight to test the non-auto-pilot small-plane flying skills, still got it apparently as there were no incidents. We cruised around above Hastings, Cape Kidnappers, Te Mata Peak, and TukiTuki valley before doing some landing and take-off practice at the end just for “fun”.
We then made our way up to Gisborne for more family time including lawn bowls, board games and a couple of days at our bach spent swimming and beach walking - despite the weather. It all flew by far too quickly and after driving back to Tauranga we suddenly we found ourselves in our last couple of days in NZ, sneaking in a last visit with friends and family there and saying our goodbyes, we then hopped on a plane to Auckland.
In an utterly random decision (literally googling “where is good to go in April”) we’d settled on Jordan for our next stop…
