Tuesday, April 7: Auckland: Sunny & warm
Kuala Lumpur: Showers & warm

Couldn’t sleep much past 7:30 but by around 8:00 all five human inhabitants were up and about and I had my vitamin tablet, the last muesli bars and some coffee for breakfast, sorted out the last rubbish and the last stuff to leave behind (which would have been: Salt, sugar, rice, margarine, milk & bread for food, and the bed roll and tent in equipment) and surprisingly by not much later than 9:00 the suitcase had everything else I wanted & needed to take back in it and could be closed without any major compression.

Short chat with Marie about how nice her place was, and then it was a hug from her and I was off to decommissioning the car; eventually the fuel gauge showed more than full so I didn’t bother trying to squeeze in anything there either. This was all achieved well within the time as well so I sat outside the car place listening to the ipod waiting for the taxi, who was also a couple of minutes early.

I should have challenged the taxi driver immediately about metering because I had chosen CheapCabs (and he definitely was the cab from there) for giving me a “fixed price” of $39 for the trip to the airport. But I suppose if you go into the terms & conditions there’ll be some “not including traffic & delays” clause. In any case it wasn’t worth arguing with the driver as the company is its own bad advertising. The metered fare came to $46.5, which the driver rounded down to $45; the supershuttle would have been $44. Despite all of the time saved (it could have been done with public transport for around $29 but would have taken much longer mainly because of the interchange chaos in town) there was already a bit of a queue @MH, where I had a chance to rethink – and then repack into the hand luggage – the lighter. Of course, if a lighter were detected in the checked luggage, it couldn’t be determined to be empty, no?

Had a look around for some pins and found a kiwi for Conny (without the superfluous and aesthetically disturbing “New Zealand” all over it; where else do kiwis come from?) and a combination Australian/New Zealand flag for myself, and saved $1.2 by having them delivered to the other side of security. This side of the last bridge I saw a woman who reminded me of Rebecca from the Whanganui River Journey, but it wasn’t her on asking. Then emptied the water bottles and was through to my final souvenirs.

Flight was very full and was seated next to Aaron, an Indian ship engineer working in NZ, and he was rather tall, and our seatbelts were either tangled or sewn together resulting in a bit of a push-me-pull-you. I could have gotten a bit of a nap but things were not yet critical.

Entertainment was a bit on the poor side – couldn’t detect much change from the trip over, so I opted for Morgan Freeman’s Wormhole on luck and chance, which was fairly good, although it lacked the application of Ockham’s Razor; one episode of the Mysteries of Laura (just OK), Sherlock Holmes & the Game of Shadows, and, finally, The Judge, both of which starred Robert Downey, Jr.

The first meal was all booked out leaving only fish and potatoes which together with some white wine was OK; the second was a choice of chicken or beef and I took the latter, a lasagne.

We were on time in Kuala Lumpur giving a wait of just over two hours until the gate opens. Have had a bit of a walk around and the cramped left calf is just OK.