Leaving Vienna Today we have a 1505 Wizz Air flight from Vienna to Funchal, Madeira.  We checked out of our hotel at 1030 and got to Vienna airport about 4h before our flight, spending just under 3h in the lounge. In the typical budget airline fashion, we were scanned through at the boarding gate then […]

Despite the 90 min delay out of Singapore, we arrived in Auckland only 55 mins late.  Despite all the food I was carrying, I was kerbside within 30 mins of landing.  I credit this to having taken photos of my food haul, to show the quarantine staff that they are of low risk (eg. not […]

Leaving Kuching It had been a productive six day stay in hometown.  Apart from the optician, I had a good dental visit and for the first time in about 20 years, I managed to get all air-conditions in the apartment working properly.  I had been having intermittent AC problems, a fix for which proved elusive […]

My AirAsia X was full but I was fine, having requested and paid for an aisle seat.  We landed in Kuala Lumpur at 0700 and parked at one of the furthest gates. Once landside, I checked if I could use the Plaza Premium lounge located landside in the shopping mall, based on my boarding pass […]

Background This trip was conceived with a booking made 14 months ago with a single flight on AirAsia X from Xian to Kuala Lumpur to use up vouchers that were issued during the pandemic when the airline was went belly-up pending revival. Over the months, I slowly built up an itinerary to include places that […]

We had a relaxing start today, hitting the road at 0900 for the drive to Auckland.  We stopped at the supermarket to get some fruit as we didn’t have breakfast.  That ought to sustain me till brunch which we had at Mokau River. Fortunately, Kim remembered that we had parked our car at a hotel […]

Trip overview Today we fly to Wellington to look at and hopefully buy a car, then embark on a road trip to New Plymouth for a nightstop enroute to Auckland. If we don’t buy the car, we have backup standby flights from Wellington to New Plymouth and then to Auckland next day. As the flight […]

My flight arrived about 10 mins later than the scheduled time of 0940.  Auckland Airport, sometimes known for its awful queues at arrival due to biosecurity screening was a breeze today. Our flight had been selected for an express arrival trial.  With nothing to declare and no luggage to collect from the carousel, I was […]