Leaving NZ.

We took a relatively early flight to Auckland arriving at 3pm which gave us a leisurely transfer to international. The check in gate wasn’t open when we arrived, so we managed to cram ourselves and our extreme amount of luggage into a very small lift (it took two trips) to visit the shops on the first floor – the revamp of Akl airport has reduced the number of landside shops to a mere handful so we repeated the lift exercise and waited downstairs. It did put us at the front of the queue and we had great seats (for cattle class) at the front of the back cabin – lots of leg room so we all got a few hours sleep on the 11 hour flight.