I woke up bright and early around 4:45am to get ready to head back to Melbourne Airport. This time in Australia was only a temporary detour to see the Australian Open, I will return in a couple weeks to explore the country more. For now, it was off to New Zealand for the next 16 days.

By the time I left the hostel at 5:40, trams were already running. I took the tram back to Southern Cross station, where I boarded a SkyBus to head back to Tullamarine Airport. I had purchased a roundtrip bus ticket the day before and was able to save A$10 by doing so.

The bus ride was painless, and I arrived at the airport around 6:20am. There was no line to check in for Virgin Australia (the complete opposite of the Bali situation a couple days prior), but I was forced to check my large backpack because the agent wanted to weigh it, and it was overweight by 4.5kg (Virgin Australia has a 7kg limit for carry on bags).

After going through security and exit immigration, I proceeded to the airline lounges, which are all located one floor below the departure gates. I had planned to go to the Plaza Premium Lounge, but evidently the hours on the Plaza Premium website need updating, since it was still closed. Instead I headed to the Amex Centurion Lounge, which at MEL is actually contracted out to Plaza Premium, and connected to the other lounge in the back (they share bathrooms).

The lounge was small but very aesthetically pleasing. When I first arrived there was no hot breakfast foods being served, but they put some out around ten minutes later. After another ten minutes, a barista arrived and began taking people's coffee orders. I opted for a Flat White.

I was concerned about missing my flight to Queenstown because I was connecting on a separate ticket. The flight was scheduled to board at 7:40, and so even though the flight did not say "Boarding" on the departure board, I still left the lounge on time to make it to the gate by 7:40. I ended up sitting and waiting for around 25 minutes before boarding commenced. Luckily, the flight was only about half full, so we boarded quickly, and I even ended up in a row with an empty middle seat!

It was a pretty clear day so we were treated to great views of Melbourne from the air. I spent my time on the flight working on some blog posts from Bali. Before long, we landed in Queenstown.

Upon landing in Queenstown it was time to go through New Zealand immigration. Like in Australia, the smart gate asked me if I had been to Indonesia within the last 7 days (both countries are concerned about an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease), to which I truthfully answered yes. The smart gate rejected me, so I had to go to a manned immigration counter and tell them I had been to Indonesia. They made a big red marking on my customs form, and when I went to the customs agent they sent me off to a separate section of the room, where there was a big bucket of disinfectant that I had to soak my shoes in for about 20 seconds. I also had to give them my flip flops from my bag, and an officer rinsed those and put them in a plastic bag for me.

Luckily the agents were all very friendly, and despite the setback I made it through customs with plenty of time to check into my next flight, operated by Air New Zealand. The Queenstown airport is quite small, with only 9 departure gates. My flight would be departing out of Gate 1 at Queenstown, which is actually located on the landside section of the airport right around the corner from the check-in desks. In other words, there was no pre-flight security, I could just hang around and then board the plane (this must be what it was like back in the "old days" that people always refer to). It seems that in New Zealand, flights with fewer than 90 passengers are not required to have security, so domestic flights operated by small aircraft such as the ATR 72 can depart and arrive using these landside gates.

I took the opportunity to hang out outside for about an hour and chat on Discord with my friends, before heading inside to get some food. There aren't many food options at Queenstown airport. I ordered a cheeseburger from Airspresso, which was pretty good.

The flight was scheduled to board at 4:05pm for a 4:20pm departure, but this ended up being a bit delayed because the inbound flight was delayed by about 15 minutes. Luckily the plane was so small that the boarding process went quickly.

The seats on the ATR 72 were incredibly uncomfortable (there was not enough cushioning), but luckily I had no seat neighbor. There is no seat-back entertainment, but who needs that when there are such fantastic views out the window.

We made it to Christchurch and I beelined directly for the Hertz Rental Car counter. I planned to spend the next week road-tripping around the South Island of New Zealand. There was only one person working at the counter and she was dealing with a German customer who did not expect to be renting a car and did not have an International Driving Permit, so I spent a long time waiting in line, but eventually was able to pick up my rental car. I had booked with DiscoverCars, a third party agency, and was concerned I might have some trouble picking up the car, but there was no hassle at all. She didn't even ask if I wanted to purchase additional insurance! Before I was given the keys, the woman gave me a briefing on driving in New Zealand, and a pamphlet containing the ten most important things to know. There were some riveting points like "wear your seat belt," "stop at stop signs," and "keep left." I headed outside where my car and the open road awaited!

After reading over the pamphlet a few times I was finally ready to drive on the wrong side of the road for the first time ever. Luckily, the car was equipped with Apple CarPlay which would make my life a lot easier, as I could pull up the GPS easily on the screen and keep both hands on the wheel at all times. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed north up State Highway 1 from Christchurch. There were three big things that took a lot of getting used to: of course driving on the left is a bit disorienting. The most difficult part of driving on the left to me was staying in the center of the lane, since I'm so used to steering so that I'm a little towards the left of center, but now I need to steer so that I'm a little towards the right of center. The second thing that took a lot of getting used to was driving a new car for the first time. The Kia Stonic has lane assist which tries to help you steer and was both helpful and irritating. Finally, the speed limits on New Zealand roads were disorienting. Most speed limits were 100, 80, 50, or 30 kph, which corresponds to about 60, 50, 30, and 20 mph respectively, which are not common speeds limits you'd see in Michigan. So I often found myself driving either a bit faster or a bit slower. Plus, many seemingly urban roads had speed limits at 100kph which felt fast, and the road from Christchurch to my destination, Kaikoura, goes through the mountains and along the coast with lots of turns and hills.

I stopped after about thirty minutes of driving at Countdown, a grocery store, to pick up some snacks for the next few days of road tripping, then drove about ninety more minutes all the way to Kaikoura. I pulled up to Dolphin Lodge, the hostel where I'd be staying, just after dusk. Check-in closed at 8pm and I didn't arrive until 10pm. I tried to call telling them I'd be late but they didn't answer. Luckily, since I'd prepaid with Booking.com, they left out a note on the front desk and a key for me. I parked my car on the street outside, and went inside with as little items as possible, to get a few hours of sleep before another early wake-up the next day.