No matter which way you look at it, 24 hours is a long time to be continuously travelling. Singapore Flight 321 left London Heathrow at 22:15 on Wednesday 6th September and arrived in Auckland at 10:30, 2 days later. Obviously, 11 hours of that time is taken up by the time difference. Notwithstanding that fact it is still a long time to be sitting on your elbows, on an aircraft.
Luckily, Singapore Airlines is one of the best in the world, so the journey was actually pretty comfortable. Good food, good movies, and the first time that I've ever slept continously for 7 hrs on a flight. The LHR to SIN sector took 12.30 hrs and the onward flight 3hrs later bound for AKL took a further 9.
We arrived to a crisp Spring morning at Auckland, and after having our bags X-Rayed on the way out of the airport for contraband biological items, we were in the minibus for the 100km journey south to Hamilton. Apparently you're not even allowed to bring bottled water into New Zealand. Seems a bit strange to me, as I could have drunk that water on the plane containing whatever bugs it did, and then a few hours later sent it down the 'dunnie' into New Zealand's sewer system to wreak havoc on some poor unsuspecting Kiwi fruit, or whatever....
We arrived in Hamilton to a bit of a surprise, the brand spanking new accommodation for us near the airport was not quite ready yet and we would have to spend a week in some student accommodation in Hamilton town itself. A bed was a bed after the journey time, and the weekend was spent getting over the jetlag.... Or at least starting to. Waking up at 4am without an alarm clock is a somewhat bemusing experience...
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