Our flight from Hong Kong was delayed by 3 hours due to bad weather and "red lightning alerts" - we sat in the plane, on the tarmac, waiting to take off for approx an hour! Then the fun began - we've never experienced such turbulence and at the biggest dive there were several shouts from the passengers (Ruth's was completely involuntary) and Brian's jar of boiled sweets flew out of the seat pocket in front of him, landing with a bang on the floor. The most scary part was the decrease in engine power and I wondered if an engine had been struck by the lightning that continued to flash all around us. We felt the plane change direction, the turbulence gradually subsided and the rest of the flight was plain sailing.
Our first sight of Aotearoa "Land of the Long White Cloud" was the Hokianga harbour (Brian's homeland), followed by the Kaipara harbour, Waiheke Island and finally South Auckland. We arrived at Auckland airport at about 2.30pm and were greeted by my best friend, Judi, in the Arrivals lounge at around 3pm.
We were pleased to be safely back after a wonderful holiday. In addition to the time we had with our family in Hong Kong, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time with Ruth's Scottish cousins and know the family links there are firmly established again. Our mothers were such dear friends and it's a good feeling to think that we and our families will continue to stay in contact and visit each other. Ros and Maggie have convinced Ruth that the best way to eat porridge is with only raspberries and Brian and Steve have similar tastes in single malt whisky. The only place not ticked off our travel wish list was Laphroaig distillery on Islay - a good excuse to return!
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