Day one, the long flight

23/10 10.02pm. Auckland International Terminal.

Finally, departure day has arrived. After a day of finding things to occupy myself including dishes, ironing shirts and watching Hustle to get a feel for London, I finally go to the shop to meet David. Putting the smaller case on the shop scales confirms my doubts that it is more than 7kg. Off to the airport we finally head, and we have a teary departing at the drop off.

First things first – weighing bags, My large suitcase which could be 23kg and which I was convinced was close to that, weighs 16kg. What can I say, in spite of appearances, I am a weakling. The small one however weighs 9.5kg. So I remove 2.5 kg of crap from it and transfer the crap over to the big one. Sorted.

Then I try to check in at a kiosk. It will not read my passport. Uh oh. I take a look and there is my unsaggy 2011 photo. I had left home with my expired passport!

A quick panicky call to David and he is on the job; happily I am an hour early. The amazing woman at the desk reassures me it is all fine, checks me into the best seats all the way (as I discover later), we chat about grandparents and our childhoods and badly designed things and she labels my suitcase and all the things and soon my knight in shining Peugeot is back with the new, saggy face photo passport. (I don’t really mind it just amuses me!) He’s my hero! A bit anti-climactic after the teary farewell.

An uneventful flight north and a pleasant stroll through a cool, still evening from the Auckland Domestic to the International terminal and here I am, with three hours to kill and nothing to do but buy over-priced food or souvenirs. I buy a jaunty travel pillow festooned with pohutukawa flowers. The woman shop assistant whispers that she is afraid of another customer who appears to be under the influence of something – extreme tiredness, drugs, who knows. Luckily that customer follows me out rambling and wanders off. I feel like I have opened a window to let a wasp escape.

I finally pass through the passenger-only gates, abandoning the bottle of L&P I bought to wash down pills, and am faced with a huge concourse of booze and perfumes and makeup. The smell is overpowering, my sinuses are not happy. How ironic that we cannot bring more than 100mls of liquid into this space filled with tens of thousands of bottles. With my precious reserves of fund raised money, it just seems so surplus. Finally out the other side, I am sitting quietly in the departure area of my gate, with a handful of travellers. The flight is very under full and I hope to get a row to myself. Or at last an empty seat beside me.

I feel so very unprepared for this trip. I’ve never been apart from David for so long since our first year of long distance bonding. My comfort zone does not include solo travel, lugging suitcases, public transport, staying with people, and living with minimal clothes. For these reasons alone it is good that I am doing it. I desperately need a kick up my butt – performing was meant to be that but it comes too easily to me. I need my life shaking up.

I know that millions do this every day, but I feel like Bear Grylls taking on the Amazon.