A very long day

Saturday July 13 Sunday July 14

This turned out to be a very long day.  All went well on the Saturday morning. Nice sleep in and late check out at 12 midday.  We went for a wander around the hotel and found some interesting shops and bought some interesting stuff! We had weighed our bags and had a tolerance of 6kg which was really good.

Went back to the hotel to catch the 2.30pm shuttle which came along at 2.45.  That was fine; our flight was 6.30pm so we would have time to shop and look around the duty free shops. We rocked up to the check in desk and looked up at the board.  Our flight was delayed until 00:15.  We could not believe it.  What could cause a 6 hour delay?  Apparently a child had taken seriously ill on the flight out of Hong Kong and they had landed at Tokyo to get her off.  This was to be our plane and it threw to the whole schedule into disarray.  Nobody complained!  It was comforting to know that they would care enough to do it.

 The rare Kermode bear, known as the Spirit Bear is only found in the rain forests of Northern British Columbia. it is not a Polar Bear but is closely related. Patariki finally got closeup with a bear just as we were about to leave North America.  He felt safe on this one.

However the real problem was getting everything sorted the other end.  Thankfully I had got my laptop and phone onto the free airport wifi.  I was able to contact Hamish and tell him what was up. This now meant being picked up at 6.30pm at night instead of about 12.00.  In the end it all worked out really well.

We finally got away at 12.45am.  They served a meal fairly quickly and eveyone seemed to go out like a light. 

At Heathrow, I got onto their free wifi and  contacted Hamish and we made a quick meeting pick up place.  It was hot when we arrived about 30 C .  Quite a change from Alaska.

We finally got to see Hamish and Lou's house and meet Bella the puppy.  She was ever so excitied to meet us. We were originally being picked up by our friends from Kent in the afternoon but that had all been changed and we stayed the first night at Hamish's.  This worked out well as it gave us more time to catch up and sort things and give him his suitcase of stuff.

The suitcase had attracted quite a bit of attention in customs on the flight from Alaska back to Vancouver.  It had been opened and inspected.  It had a small trombone case inside it which had given it an odd appearance. they probably x-rayed it first to see what on earth was in it.   Would have loved to have been there when they opened it.  It was full of kiwiana.  Marmite, black forest chocolate, cookie time, pineapple lumps, powerade powder, Tui t shirts, kiwi books, and old band photos and school stuff.  The best bit is that it now an empty suitcase to fill up!  It was amazing how much we had managed to pack in, and the alto trombone now has it's own case to live in again. (One less thing in our attic as well.)  the amazing thing is that Alan and I travelled here in one suitcase between us that weighed under 20kg.  We are very proud of that and have used everything we brought.  Nothing is having a ride in the bag except Patariki of course.