A difficult day

After my wonderful stay in Dunedin I set out on Friday 18th January on my way back to Auckland. This, however, was nothing as straightforward as going to Dunedin airport and flying there. My cousin Gail on the Tippett side of the family went off to France just before I got to Wellington. She did however tell me that our cousin Elaine is now living in Temuka, north of Timaru. Elaine is one of my oldest cousins so I was very keen to see her. This meant that I needed to take the bus to Temuka, stay for a few hours, pick up the bus to Hornby in Christchurch and take a shuttle to the airport where I was taking a flight to Auckland.

Lynn took me to the bus station around 8am and we bade an emotional farewell and I settled into my nice leather seat on the coach, placing my coat and sun hat on the rack above me. Dunedin had been a special place with all the family history plus the wonderful wildlife that I had experienced, not to mention Mungo the dog, who had become my companion on three early morning walks and my wonderful cousin Lynn, who had been so great not only at showing me all the family history, but also doing some fabulous meals for me. She has promised to send me a document called “Lynn’s Kitchen”. I do come from a family of great gardeners and it has enthused me to grow vegetables again in England.

After a relatively uneventful trip we arrived at Timaru, where our rather dour driver told us we all had to get off and if we weren’t back in 25 minutes the coach would go without us. Fortunately there was a cafe very close to the bus, so I gobbled down a biscuit and coffee and returned to the coach. An extremely chatty lady came to sit by me and I’d heard about most of the people she cared for when I came to the next stop, which she told me was Temuka. I could see my cousin at the bus stop and as the driver was pressing us to get off I grabbed my belongings and cases and left the coach. I was delighted to see Elaine, who at 85 still looks just the same and it was only after the coach had gone that I realised I’d left my coat and sun hat on the shelf. The hat didn’t matter, but the coast was the one with my football club crest on it and I was rather partial to it.

Elaine drove me to he home and after lunch we started looking at photos that I had taken of the family then photos she had of my father and his family. I was thrilled to see one when my grandmother was younger and with just six children instead of twelve, including my father, the eldest boy at about the age of 10.

Elaine’s daughter and granddaughter, Catherine and Addison also came over to meet me and we had a general chat about the family. They hadn’t met many relations so found some of the photos interesting.

Elaine drove me back to the bus stop in Temuka and we waited, and waited. The bus was 45 minutes late. I looked at my flight departure time from Christchurch and realised that it was going to be very tight. I did an internet search for flight times to see if there was a later flight I could get and while there was a 9pm flight I noticed that the one I was catching was delayed by 50 minutes. I messaged Lynn and she spoke to Air New Zealand who thought that I’d be in time for the delayed flight.

The bus driver arrived at Hornby, which was apparently the stop for the airport and I alighted with one other person who was also going to the airport. The driver assured us that the shuttle would be along in five minutes and drove on his way into Christchurch. After 25 minutes the shuttle hadn’t arrived and I was back in panic mode. After 30 minutes a mini bus towing a small luggage truck arrived and a tall lady took my luggage and transported me to the airport with great apologies.

I arrived at the airport to discover the flight was now delayed until 9.30pm and checked my luggage in. with a feeling of relief and not a little exhaustion I made my way to a place selling alcohol and bought a glass of wine.

The flight was further delayed and we eventually left two hours late. I’d let my friend Cath know that I was delayed by an hour, but even so she had been waiting over an hour. I was delighted to see her and to relax in the comfort of her air conditioned car on the trip back to Milford. I had come full circle from the start of my trip and had my last week to spend back in Auckland.