Retirement Trip - things start to go pear shaped

Week commencing 16 March - the last week of normality.  The news wasn't making for great reading and we tried to carry on with our trip without letting it spoil it too much, but lurking in the background was that nagging doubt.  We drove the Thermal Loop, visiting a couple of ski resorts, saw Mount Doom, rode a cable car lift, watched a live volcano puffing .

We visited the Thermal park at Waiotapu, made a quick stop in Rotarua - not impressed, continuing along the coast to overnight in Ohope on the Bay of Plenty.  Questions were asked about our arrival in the country, people were now being asked to quarantine.  

From there we headed along the coastal road 35, watching the infamous White Island out at sea throwing out its plumes of steam into the air

19 March - first communication from Trailfinders regarding the fact that we might want to go home

20 March - TF start looking for flights

21 March - time difference was proving to be a problem with getting hold of each other - they'd call in the middle of the night when we were asleep, then leave messages, but then we couldn't call them back

22 March - no flights to be had, advised to contact the British Consulate.  Felt completely abandoned. We decided at this point to give up the camper van, campsites were closing or not letting you use their facilities.  Wifi was very poor and it was stressing me out not being able to get a reliable connection

23 March - Auckland - We visited the British Consulate which was awful, lots of people crammed into a small office, no one taking charge, waited around 30 minutes then someone came out and basically told us there was nothing they could do at that point and to go away!! We took back the camper along with practically everyone else, it was chaos and quiet upsetting.  I managed to get online whilst awaiting a taxi into Auckland and got us booked into a hotel for two nights.  It had a kitchenette and washing/drying facilities so we thought that might do.  On arrival we were offered a package to extend our stay if we needed which was comforting.  The receptionist took us to a small supermarket where we got some provisions then went and found a restaurant for a last meal.  Everywhere was closing down in preparation for lockdown

24 March - Visit the British Consulate again - IT's CLOSED - lots of very cross/worried/scared people.  We did manage to talk our way into the lobby where we were able to register our email/phone number and basically await and prepare for an unknown duration in lockdown.

Retirement Trip .....Cut short

Apologies for the absence but Peter and I have been away on our long planned for retirement trip.  In fact we should still be away but world events have cut our trip short.

On the 16 February we left the UK amidst a storm.  Our original plan was to travel to the airport by train but on the day due to high winds and flooding our trains were cancelled. Our youngest daughter kindly volunteered to drive us to Heathrow.  It was a hairy ride, the weather was horrible. The airport was in chaos due to cancelled flights and a computer system failure so it made for an interesting few hours.

Prior to our leaving for our trip we had been worried about the risks of going to Singapore - our 3 day stopover - but as the foreign office were still saying it was ok to travel we had no choice but to go; of course we could have rerouted but the alternatives weren't much better.  Anyway we had a great time in Singapore, it was so quiet mainly just western travelers as the bulk of their normal visitors come from China.  We were able to wander about and felt safe in the knowledge that everywhere was taking precautions against the coronavirus - temperature checking and hand sanitizer when ever you arrived back at the hotel or went in anywhere.

I think we did it justice in our 3 days, visiting the Gardens by the Bay, Raffles, Chinatown and a good walk around in general.  We did notice though that lots of the bars and restaurants were closed due to lack of visitors.

We were very impressed with Singapore (apart from the humidity - oh my hair), so clean and everywhere was a riot of colour from all the plants, it must cost a fortune for the upkeep of them all and a small army to keep them watered.

The next leg of our trip was New Zealand - arriving in Christchurch on the Friday and then picking up our camper van for 38 nights on the road.  To be honest Christchurch was a blur of jet lag and I can't tell you a whole lot about it!! In fact apart from getting some lunch and a quick walk round (its still looks like a building site due to the devastating earthquake in 2016) we went back to the hotel and slept and I only took these photos.

I'll leave you there for now and continue our journey on a series of posts.  I have 5 weeks to cover and nearly 2500 photos to go through.