A break from travel is respite for this anxious traveller
Don’t miss Adam Green and Megan Banks on The Hits Hawke’s Bay from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday.
Is this the right plane ...orwillIendupin Dunedin?
International travel, for most of us, is a long-distant memory.
I’ll put my hand up and say that a small part of me is relieved. Because while I love the allure of a tropical beach, cocktail in hand and the waves gently crashing on the reef, or the sparkle of a foreign city glistening in the evening light full of possibility, I’m also what they call an “over-organised unorganised stressy traveller”.
Okay, maybe “they” don’t call it that, but that’s me. I was reminded of that particular conundrum recently as I was tasked with getting my daughter to Auckland and back chasing her sporting endeavours.
The organised part of me likes to be at the airport with at least an hour up my sleeve. Yes, I know domestic lets you check in online, and I know that you don’t need much time if you only carry a bag on. But what I require is 15 minutes for all of that, and a further 45 minutes to check the tickets I printed two copies of are in my pocket and are for the correct flight, check the digital board and compare flight numbers on my tickets four times and spend at least 10 of those minutes standing unnecessarily close to the gate in preparation for a boarding call that there’s absolutely no chance I can miss.
I was so over-organised unorganised in our preparation to return to
Hawke’s Bay that I removed my face mask from my bag, placed it on the bed beside my bag ready to pick up as we left, and forgot it.
Leaving me to run around the airport looking for the Air NZ handout masks like they were calling my name at final call and I was in the carpark. (I wasn’t, there was 45 minutes until flight time and I was 6m from the gate. And I thought I’d forgotten it; in my constant preparation I’d absent-mindedly packed it and it was under the undies in the corner ready to go.)
Even as I was crossing the tarmac after checking gate numbers on every screen, I wondered is this the right plane . . . or will I end up in Dunedin?
“Have a lovely flight to Napier,” the baggage handler said. And as I stepped on to the plane and the stress dropped away, I thought, thank goodness that’s as far as I’m going, because my pockets aren’t big enough for any more tickets.