Travel day(s)

September 3, 2023 to September 10, 2023

Sunday was our time travel day. We left in the evening with the hope of Tobias sleeping on at least one leg of the journey. We had a bit more choice with flights compared to in February and had two 12 hour flights with just a 2 hour stop over in Seoul.

Luckily we managed to borrow a friends van to get all our luggage to the airport on Sunday. I hate travelling with far too much luggage. In total we had 2 bikes, 1 trailer, 3 checked suitcases, 3 carry on suitcases, 3 "personal items", a foldable pram, a front pack, and Tobias' cot which didn't fit in anywhere else but could be checked for free since he's a kid. Luckily Chase and Jess escorted us to the airport - Chase and James in the van with all the luggage and Jess and I in the train with Tobias. One last tearful goodbye and it was just us trying to negotiate 2 trolleys with bikes and a pram through far to narrow corralling tapes to check in for our flight.

All 6 pieces of luggage were within 100g of 23kg. Both bikes were technically oversized and they could have charged us for that, but they just looked at them and saw bikes and didn't ask any more questions. We were nervous about the trailer (I mean pram) because it was also oversized, but they didn't really seem to mind. It took a long time to check in because their system was down, but the staff were extraordinarily friendly and helpful. We were happy to be rid of most of our stuff and didn't have any issues getting through security or immigration.

We spent far too much on average quality sushi in the airport since we hadn't had any time to prepare dinner. The new part of the terminal was open which included a big soft play airplane where Tobias could run around and made friends with another kid near the end of their journey.

Tobias being over 2 meant we had to purchase him his own seat this time around. This was a bit painful to pay for, but a significant improvement on the flight. For the first flight we had a row of 3 by the window and we managed to get him to sleep on my lap for almost 8 hours. The stop over in Seoul was so short that we only just had time to get through security, to the gate, go to the toilet, and get back on. Luckily there was another playground just outside the gate to keep Tobias entertained while we re-organized ourselves.

We had a row of 4 seats for the next flight, the extra space was welcome since we had a wriggly energetic child who felt like it was daytime and only slept for about 3 hours. We pulled out almost every one of the toys and games I'd brought along. Tobias was fine and I don't think he would have been a pain to any of the other passengers, but it was a full on 12 hours of being entertainment providers.

He was pretty tired by the time we arrived in Auckland. We found the friendliest customs agent who took pity on me trying to control the trolley full of bikes in one hand and Tobias in the pram in the other. She ended up pushing him all the way through MPI and providing him with countless stickers. I think she also cut us to the front of the line, but I'm not quite sure. They opened each bike but didn't glance further than the tires. They also took the tent out back to shake it out and check it, but were happy that everything was clean enough so after passing everything through the x-ray we were on our way out. After watching us negotiating the bollards a parking attendants took over pushing Tobias' pram to the pick up zone where we met James' Dad with a trailer to pick us and our stuff up.

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