This afternoon I flew back from Wellington where I had gone for a quick holiday with my mom.

Flight down. NZ is called the land of the long white cloud for a reason. (sorry for the off colour this taken of course from a plane)

Mt Ruapehu peaking out above the clouds. (photo taken at 34,000 feet)

Zoomed in for a closer view.

Passing another plane. I believe this may be a Virgin Blue plane because closely zoomed it appears red.

After landing in Wellington the first thing we did was to rent a car and drive to the top of Mount Victoria. This is the view from the top looking back at the Airport.

Wellington Harbour from Mount Victoria

Central Wellington from Mount Victoria

After leaving Mount Victoria we headed to Parliament for a quick visit before having lunch at the Backbencher Pub. From there we headed up to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. At the sanctuary we walked up to a dam and along the way met some interesting creatures.

This is from a lookout above the dam that we climbed to. Lots of fun. The Sanctuary is an awesome thing to have so close to the center of a city.

This is the fence that protects the Sanctuary from the rest of civilization.

After leaving the Sanctuary we went shopping in Lambton Key and Willis Street before checking into our hotel where we had dinner and afterwards went for a night time drive around the capital.

Mom at the top of Mount Victoria

A tired Brad at the end of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

On the Sunday we had a midmorning flight to catch back so we headed to the airport by taking a detour through the city, around Oriental Parade and Miramar. On the flight back we got a really nice view of Mt Taranaki and the surrounding coastline.

However, before this story is compete there is one final twist in it. I the title of this post is the 24 hour Wellington Experience. And you cannot experience Wellington without being in an Earthquake. So at 3am this morning Wellington decided to a little jolt. It was enough to wake both me and mom up, first there was a loud bang and then the walls of the hotel moved twice before something fell over in the bathroom (probably a shampoo bottle) at the time both me and mom thought each other were asleep and both of us just went back to sleep and our suspicions about an earthquake were confirmed in the morning.

Quake Details

Information about this earthquake:

Reference Number	2923267/G
Universal Time	June 14 2008 at 15:07
NZ Standard Time	Sunday, June 15 2008 at 3:07 am
Latitude, Longitude	41.18°S, 174.42°E
Focal Depth	40 km
Richter magnitude	3.7
Region	Marlborough
Location	30 km north-west of Wellington

Felt in Wellington and Marlborough.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/2923267g.html

Okay I am getting sick of having to explain what happened to just about everyone I see. So now I can just tell them to read my blog.

When I flew to Wellington last Sunday we had an engine failure. Well actually a complete APU failure. Luckly we were on Taxi and not in the air.

This is how it went down:
We were push backed from the terminal like normal. While the engines were being started they were doing the safety demonstrations. It was pretty obvious from the start that something was wrong with the engines because they were not making the normal engine starting noise. Halfway through the safety video all the power died in the aircraft. I mean the video stopped, the air con stopped, all the lights cut out, the engines stopped we came to a complete halt with no power or engines.

We sat for 20 mins parked sideways on the taxi way in front of the domestic terminal before we got pulled back to the terminal. All other aircraft had to detour around us by using the B runway. Thank god for that second runway at Auckland! Once we were pulled back they decided to jump start us off a ground power unit that they had to call over from the International Terminal on a truck!

We had no power, lights or anything for more then 40 minutes. Did I say we had no aircon. Also this was an Airbus A320 a medium range aircraft normally used on international routes. It has 170 seats and I can only assume that it was being used as a domestic aircraft because it was a long weekend and school holidays. We had about 40 kids on board which was fine for all of 5 mins and then the crying began! Once started again we made it safely and without incident to Wellington 50 minutes late. Fun!

If you haven’t heard about Air New Zealand’s new baggage charges you can read about them here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10502213

The words money making rip off come to mind when reading about it. I am currently traveling on around 20 - 30 flights per year and I am never over my baggage weight allowance, in fact 90% of the time I am more then 50% under it. Although I do occasionally travel with two bags - always underweight.

I think Air New Zealand have figured out that not many people traveling domestically actually go over the baggage weight limit and have found another way to squeeze them for money. Only a few days ago it was announced that fairs would also increase.

To put it bluntly Air New Zealand want you to pay more for you ticket. Pay more for your bags. Provide less people behind the desk and expect more from you (ie you have to put your own bags on the baggage trolley).

What is next? A $1000 per ticket cost to fly to Wellington where you create your own ticket, act as your own security screener, fly the plane yourself, be baggage handler, air traffic controller, and ground crew. Customer Service yeah right!