Day 1 - Auckland to Heathrow 29/05/05
We are finally underway on the great unwashed tour of Britain and Ireland. Why unwashed? Because Roger keeps telling me that Poms only wash once a week whether they need to or not; having watched Angela’s Ashes I can verify this. Actually washing is a bad subject because one of us left his washing to the last minute, long story but the drier broke and one of us set off for the UK with a wet crutch.
Being seasoned travellers we stocked up on expensive water from the airport shops to avoid inflight dehydration, only to discover Cathy Pacific (voted best airline in 2005) were not going to let us dehydrate or starve. In our 25 hour trip (12hrs to Hong Kong and then 13hrs to Heathrow) we were served 4 main meals and snacks every half hour.
Hong Kong and Heathrow airports were surprisingly quiet, explainable probably by the midnight hour in Hong Kong and the bank holiday in London. The toilets were clean and automated to reduce disease, unlike Auckland where I was pleased we had had hepatitis A shots beforehand.
The first photo of many is of the two teddies, who left New Zealand with us, at Hong Kong airport. Unfortunately the camera batteries were flat and the rechargables were in our luggage so we had to fork out for some expensive Hong Kong batteries.