Day 2: Travelling from Sydney to Auckland

The day started with a slow wake up and waving to office workers in the building opposite.

A cooked breakfast was delivered to the room, all in sanitary but disposable packaging ...

We'd been told to be all packed and ready to leave the hotel four hours before our flight, however a call from the police downstairs came five hours prior to the flight advising that the bus was leaving the hotel in 20 minutes. Reasoning with them didn't get us anywhere and so we hurriedly packed and got down in time for the paperwork process. We then boarded the bus with our police escort and made our way to the airport.

Once we got to the airport it became clear that the police process had not gone smoothly as we were too early to check in for our flight later that day. We sat down in a public space and were minded by two police officers for an hour. We were starting to get the sense that life for the next couple of weeks was going to be one of confinement and close monitoring.

We had some nervous waiting while checking in for our flight as the attendant first called Australian Home Affairs to confirm we could travel and then the NZ equivalent to do the same. This all took a while and a pessimistic person would have thought something was wrong, but thankfully the attendant finally got the confirmation numbers he needed.

After passing through passport control we found a very cavernous and empty terminal with only a few food shops open. The newsagents was open, and like the same store in Melbourne hadn't received many new books since March. Their wall of top 20 sellers looked a bit out of date and I learnt that it was from 6 months ago.

 

The plane was virtually empty. I counted 20 passengers for an A320-200 set up with 180 all economy seats. There is no way that they could even be meeting costs so the airline is either running at a huge loss or is getting substantial government help.

The back page of the passenger arrival card had been updated to ask for all of the Covid-19 symptoms, contact with infected people etc. With some trepidation we ticked Yes to the question 'Will you enter and remain in managed quarantine?'.

The flight over went very smoothly. It was great seeing the vivid green of NZ as we approached Auckland. Upon arrival there was more queuing to be done as we waited for temperature and symptom checking ...

Thankfully we got sent down the B line (no symptoms) to immigration and after passing through learnt we'd be heading to the 4-star Holiday Inn in Mangere, not far from the airport.

Upon arrival at the Holiday Inn we were met by yet more police, military and health personnel. I think most people arriving are Kiwis returning home, so the staff were surprised to hear we would be here for less than 90 days, meaning we'd potentially have to pay for our stay. Friendly staff in all the PPE asked us to point out our luggage, which they wheeled through the hotel to the room we would be calling home for the next 14 days.

It was a great relief to learn that our room was on the ground floor, with sliding doors that opened out onto a small paved area and a grass lawn. So we wouldn't be cooped up in a highrise box. Even better was learning that there was a garden area we could walk in at our leisure during the day and that there were more substantial organised walks run during the day.

After some dinner arrived to our room we set about choosing our meals for the two weeks using an online selection system. From the descriptions the meals sound not bad but the proof will be in the eating ...

So we'd finally made it which was a relief.