Te Urewera National Park Chat Superthread

[Axver]

When i went to Christchurch i was very close to taking the train to Greymouth, but we were concerned that we'd be cutting it fine with getting to the airport for our flight back to Wellington.

My grandmother was from Invercargill and my parents lived in Dunedin for the longest time, so i wouldn't mind visiting them, as well as the really beautiful parts of the South Island as well.

The TranzAlpine is so worth it. I can't believe how much it costs though. I've only done the Christchurch to Arthur's Pass leg when I was little. Came down with chicken pox on the train too! Bah. I need to do it again, properly.

I think about half of Central Otago is probably related to me ... so's a good chunk of Canterbury ...

 

[coolian2]

RONALD REAGAN AIRPORT.

Worst. Airport name. Ever.

Fuck I hate Reagan. Not a bad airport though. I liked it more than Dulles.

As a plane nerd National > Dulles, because of the River Visual approach.

And what wanker decided to call it Reagan Airport? For fucks sake.

 

[Axver]

I got my deodorant taken off me when i flew to Wellington last year - all because it didn't have a lid.

For. Fucks. Sake. And i had to stand around and wait for a little form to be filled out.

Wow. Thank fuck MOST domestic flights in New Zealand don't have security though. I love how you just hop on a flight to, say, Nelson. Not even a metal detector to pass through.

 

[coolian2]

I've taken the train from Kirkcaldy (Scotland) to Kings Cross. It was good fun. It was better than flying on that occasion because it gave me a chance to see much more of the countryside, especially because who knows how much longer it will take to get back there.

 

[Axver]

As a plane nerd National > Dulles, because of the River Visual approach.

And what wanker decided to call it Reagan Airport? For fucks sake.

Yes, that's the approach I flew in on. Absolutely fantastic.

In Dulles, I landed in a fairly nice terminal on the flight from Boston, but then my connecting flight to Nashville was in a terminal that seemed barely removed from a hangar, overcrowded, and poorly organised. Totally shithouse.

 

[coolian2]

Wow. Thank fuck MOST domestic flights in New Zealand don't have security though. I love how you just hop on a flight to, say, Nelson. Not even a metal detector to pass through.

I always forget how much of a pleasure domestic flying is.

Security is always nice and easy and there is no bloody immigration and customs, which drives me mad every time i fly internationally, especially coming home to Auckland. It's a clusterfuck there. Sydney isn't a lot better, one time i just got waved right through the screening because it was such a fucking mess.

 

[Axver]

cock-burn.

Inaccessible Island would be fun, where is that?

In Tristan da Cunha, the middle of fucking nowhere in the South Atlantic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inaccessible_Island,_Tristan_da_Cunha

 

[Alisaura]

The plane that was meant to take us from Sydney -> Tokyo broke down for some reason so we had to wait in the airline lounge in Sydney (i tried to eat and drink as much of my moneys worth as i could), then go via Cairns to get to Tokyo where we would be unable to catch our British Airways flight so we had to hang around for a few hours to wait for that.

I'd love to do more travel like that, as a plane geek i could sit at most airports in the world for ages, positively enthralled.

Planes are great... and you don't get that awesome whooshy-take-off feeling on trains.
(I cued up COBL as often as I could on my mp3 player whenever we were taking off... )

I think the only delays I had were flying from Exeter (tiniest airport evar) to Glasgow (plane delayed by about 3 or 4 hours due to it being struck by lightning TWICE earlier in the day on the way to Jersey or something).... and then the flight from Honolulu to NZ was delayed by 3 hours (we were supposed to be taking off at midnight, originally)... I was over airports by then. And we had to wait 5 hours in Auckland anyway to get back to Melbourne. And it was cold and raining and horrible.

Coming back from holidays sucks.

 

[Varitek]

As a plane nerd National > Dulles, because of the River Visual approach.

And what wanker decided to call it Reagan Airport? For fucks sake.

looks like a cool approach but how the fuck do you two kiwis know so much about our capital's two airports. fuck if i can even remember the name of your capital.

(aukland. but don't ask me what you call the airport)

reagan was a move by a republican congress. like i said no self-respecting liberal calls it that, we still call it National

 

[coolian2]

Yes, that's the approach I flew in on. Absolutely fantastic.

I want to just do a heap of flying in the USA to find all sorts of fun approaches and landings.

Especially the River Visual. I'd die of happiness to do that.

 

[Axver]

i have never been to tn or ky. i haven't been to the south except FL. you should do more on the train!

45d

edit - wait did you do all those states in one visit?

Yes, one visit. I stayed in TN, just outside Nashville.

I'd love to ride around the US by train. Amtrak could probably use the patronage outside the northeast too!

 

[coolian2]

looks like a cool approach but how the fuck do you two kiwis know so much about our capital's two airports. fuck if i can even remember the name of your capital.

(aukland. but don't ask me what you call the airport)

Planes + Airports = Win.

Axver is going to be all over that capital comment though.



Auckland International Airport.

 

[Axver]

I've taken the train from Kirkcaldy (Scotland) to Kings Cross. It was good fun. It was better than flying on that occasion because it gave me a chance to see much more of the countryside, especially because who knows how much longer it will take to get back there.

Watch as I get very jealous.

 

[Varitek]

I always forget how much of a pleasure domestic flying is.

Security is always nice and easy and there is no bloody immigration and customs, which drives me mad every time i fly internationally, especially coming home to Auckland. It's a clusterfuck there. Sydney isn't a lot better, one time i just got waved right through the screening because it was such a fucking mess.

that is absolutely unfathomable to me. even pre-9-11 we had annoying amounts of security.

 

[Axver]

looks like a cool approach but how the fuck do you two kiwis know so much about our capital's two airports. fuck if i can even remember the name of your capital.

(aukland. but don't ask me what you call the airport)

reagan was a move by a republican congress. like i said no self-respecting liberal calls it that, we still call it National

1. It's Auckland.
2. It's a fucking hole and we'd never let it be our capital nowadays. WELLINGTON is the capital. Russell was the capital 1840-41, Auckland 1841-63, and Wellington since then. They intended to move it to Nelson at the top of the South Island, the geographic centre of New Zealand, but never got across the Cook Strait.

We're Kiwis. Nothing happens in New Zealand so we inherently find out a lot of shit about other countries.

 

[bono_man2002]

Planes are great... and you don't get that awesome whooshy-take-off feeling on trains.
(I cued up COBL as often as I could on my mp3 player whenever we were taking off... )

I cued up COBL when we flew out of LA on the way back to Melbourne.

Good Times.

 

[Axver]

I always forget how much of a pleasure domestic flying is.

Security is always nice and easy and there is no bloody immigration and customs, which drives me mad every time i fly internationally, especially coming home to Auckland. It's a clusterfuck there. Sydney isn't a lot better, one time i just got waved right through the screening because it was such a fucking mess.

I don't even see the point of the paranoia. Nobody hates New Zealand. Nobody's going to really want to fly a plane into the Beehive or anything. Fuck, you wouldn't do much damage with the tiny Saabs and whatnot that fly most of the domestic routes. I love those little planes. They're so much more comfortable than the ones on the trans-Tasman and trunk routes.

 

[Alisaura]

There's two, National (renamed reagan but liberals refuse to call it that) and Dulles.

That was it, Dulles. I had to chuckle...

I never, ever check off that farmland bit even if it's true. why go through the hassle?

You don't care about importing exotic diseases into your agriculture industry...




*has been brainwashed by Australia's paranoid quarantine policies*

I got asked if I'd had contact with horses when we got back to Aus... I had no idea about the horse flu thing.

the most security i ever saw was probably last time I flew thru heathrow, they'd added an extra shoe-scanning machine. however i still got a mini bottle of wine through by accident that they then caught in toronto when scanning my stuff to connect to the us. I was like "oh shit, well throw it out" and the baggage checker was a n00b and tagged and bagged it and generally took forever until his supervisor came over and said to just throw it out.

That taking-off-the-shoes thing was tedious. Especially since I didn't have any slip-on shoes with me.
Mum accidentally took a bottle of Hawaii hotel water onto the plane, then had to drink it all (well, I helped) at the security point in Auckland cos they had no bins to throw it out. It was yucky water, too.

 

[coolian2]

Planes are great... and you don't get that awesome whooshy-take-off feeling on trains.

On my last trip, i thought my most exciting takeoffs power-wise would be from the postage stamp runway in Wellington.

But no. It was the piss-easy take off from Auckland first up, on the lowest powered plane of the lot i flew on.

Excuse me while i whore out my videos: http://youtube.com/user/coolian2

 

[Varitek]

Planes are great... and you don't get that awesome whooshy-take-off feeling on trains.
(I cued up COBL as often as I could on my mp3 player whenever we were taking off... )

I think the only delays I had were flying from Exeter (tiniest airport evar) to Glasgow (plane delayed by about 3 or 4 hours due to it being struck by lightning TWICE earlier in the day on the way to Jersey or something).... and then the flight from Honolulu to NZ was delayed by 3 hours (we were supposed to be taking off at midnight, originally)... I was over airports by then. And we had to wait 5 hours in Auckland anyway to get back to Melbourne. And it was cold and raining and horrible.

Coming back from holidays sucks.

the last flight i was on got struck by lightening coming towards boston. it was kind of scary.

my family was once delayed about 7 hours while trying to get toAZ for a holiday. I had a 4 hour hellish delay coming back from thanksgiving freshman year of college - since then I took the train to the grandparents for thanksgiving.

I love super super super long layovers though - I've only ever seen london on my 9 hour layover and paris on my 13 hour layover. sadly the way back was a 7 hour layover which for CDG is NOT enough time to get away and back and do anything but have a coffee so that was miserable.

i was trapped in a temporary terminal where water cost 2.50 euros and everything else was even more. i bought 1 bottle of water and thanked myself for pakcing snacks. and listened to multiple u2 shows.

 

[Axver]

I think the only delays I had were flying from Exeter (tiniest airport evar) to Glasgow (plane delayed by about 3 or 4 hours due to it being struck by lightning TWICE earlier in the day on the way to Jersey or something).... and then the flight from Honolulu to NZ was delayed by 3 hours (we were supposed to be taking off at midnight, originally)... I was over airports by then. And we had to wait 5 hours in Auckland anyway to get back to Melbourne. And it was cold and raining and horrible.

I've only ever had one really significant delay. I was flying Brisbane --> Wellington and something was wrong with the plane so the flight got cancelled. I had to sit around in Brisbane for hours before a flight to Auckland. I then had to wait for a while in Auckland for a flight to Wellington. All told, I got into Wellington about 9 hours late. What a fucking cock-up that was.

 

[bono_man2002]

I smuggled Chocolate Tiny Teddies into America

 

[Axver]

that is absolutely unfathomable to me. even pre-9-11 we had annoying amounts of security.

I felt like US airports were fucking prisons. It was scary. And all the customs officials were so grumpy. I've had friendly chats with customs officials in Wellington, Melbourne, and Auckland!

 

[coolian2]

I don't even see the point of the paranoia. Nobody hates New Zealand. Nobody's going to really want to fly a plane into the Beehive or anything. Fuck, you wouldn't do much damage with the tiny Saabs and whatnot that fly most of the domestic routes. I love those little planes. They're so much more comfortable than the ones on the trans-Tasman and trunk routes.

Exactly.

What the fuck are you going to fly a plane into here?

I can't wait to do some small plane flying when i decide to visit more NZ regional centres.

 

[Varitek]

Watch as I get very jealous.

i haven't trained around britain but i've taken the train all over europe, in germany austria italy poland bosnia slovenia hungary slovakia and maybe more that i'm missing.

 

[Alisaura]

Wow. Thank fuck MOST domestic flights in New Zealand don't have security though. I love how you just hop on a flight to, say, Nelson. Not even a metal detector to pass through.

I loved Hawaii's open-air theory of airport design. Kona airport on the Big Island is just a collection of separate shacks, and you walk out to the planes on tarmac/asphalt/bitumen/whatever. They were all talking about changing it to be more secure or some bullshit. Who the hell would want to bomb Kona??

 

[coolian2]

I felt like US airports were fucking prisons. It was scary. And all the customs officials were so grumpy. I've had friendly chats with customs officials in Wellington, Melbourne, and Auckland!

The biggest memory i have of LAX is being basically lined up against the wall and having sniffer dogs walked past us....on a flight from fucking London.

Customs officials here are generally very cool. Even if they don't give a fuck about where you've been they don't show it.

 

[Varitek]

ok guys i think i am out because i am about to turn into a pumpkin.

 

[bono_man2002]

ok guys i think i am out because i am about to turn into a pumpkin.

Toodle-Pip!

 

[redhotswami]

i don't know anyone who lives near the airport like myself who calls it Reagan. it's much better than Dulles anyway. I like how DC has 3 airports, none of which are in DC.

Dulles - VA (and 30 min away from DC)
BWI - WTF it is called Baltimore Washington?! Those are 2 cities an hour apart! And it's closer to Bmore than DC.
National - still in VA, but you can see the nat'l monument from it so that's close enough.