Queenstown - Abu Dhabi

 Queenstown to Abu Dhabi

It’s relatively warm as we load the dirt caked rental and wave goodbye to Anne, Peter and Ariel in Wanaka, it’s lucky its warm as our winter jackets will stay in Wanaka as we will not need them where we are off to. We surprised the girls with a last minute trip home and we managed to catch up with lots of friends, even celebrating April's birthday. It was amazing for all of us to see everyone again.

Its a stunningly balmy 19 degrees as we unpack the car at the airport but the wind gusts are intense - blowing over ski bags where it can, it was much the same up the mountain yesterday. The conditions were amazing except for the wind ripping snow off the peaks and pushing us along. Whilst I watched April down a bowl of chips after a top effort on the magic carpet I noticed the Chondola was on hold due to strong winds. Figuring Ben and Alila must be kicking around somewhere I call Ben who says they’d headed down to the lower mountain.  Soon the Chondola starts up again and I start receiving a series of texts detailing the adventures of Ben and Alila as they find their only lift back up to get to the car is shut. Alila hears the word shuttle and she zooms off before Ben even knows what’s happening to the spot where on a particularly busy day when we had to park half way up the mountain and shuttle to the top. They’re lucky and are the first ones on the first shuttle. 

So here we are at the airport and the departure board is very quickly lighting up with the words delayed and cancelled. We’re worried as the flight in from Melbourne was cancelled so with nothing to go on we head to the departure gate with our fingers crossed and as our scheduled departure time comes and goes its another hour until we finally board the plane bound for Melbourne. Its under4 hours so we glue ourselves to our tv's and the time flies by. 

Its past the kids bedtime as we disembark and follow the signs to transit but are soon hampered by two solid doors with a single phone and a brief sign explaining what to do if the area is unattended. We’re the third group in line so we stretch our sore ski legs and chat with other passengers but still no one arrives. Someone makes a second call and after long wait the elevator clatters to life and we all shuffle eagerly forward. A man appears and his eyes widen in surprise at the group crammed in the foyer by the door. ‘You should see the line down the corridor then!” I say. 

Only 14 hours to Abu Dhabi.

We settle in our seats, 14 hours seems a daunting amount of time to spend in this tight space. The man in the window seat pops over to let me know his son has seizures which can be triggered by kids crying, so I’m hoping April falls asleep without a fuss along with all other tiny passengers. 

14 hours later Ben and I have slept and napped the time away, still feeing awful but knowing we've got some sleep. However April and Alila have had a short sleep and spent several hours watching movies, haha they'll regret that later in the day.

We arrive to the dust, haze and desert heat of Abu Dhabi, it's going to get to 42 degrees today and having come from the snow and cold of the South Island it's a bit of a shock to us kiwis in our long pants.

We jump in the tinny Mitsubishi with its aircon blasting, all noise and no cool air and head out on the highway to the Emirates Hotel, We move through the immense marbled spaces to the buffet, it's hugely expensive, but a great way to forget what was suppose to be eggs for breakfast on the plane.

 

Despite the disinclination of the waiter to recommend the Heritage Village we perform some circles in the Mitsi, find the exit and head on over. Its super hot now and the aircon has done nothing to cool us down, I think I’m overheating just willing the aircon to work. The carpark at the Heritage Village is dead empty, not a soul in sight.  We’re suppose to have a ‘Green pass” but seem to be allowed in anyways and find we are the only ones here apart from a couple of goats, a large bull and the tiniest stray kitten you’d ever see. Its a great 20 min stop to soak up some of the culture. We do see one other couple as we leave brave enough to be out in this heat, they gush over the Mosque but tell us we wouldn’t get in as they’re strict about the green pass there. We zoom around Yas Island, home to several supersize attractions such as Ferrariland, a super mall and what looks to be an almost completed SeaWorld. Then Ben has us on a detour looking at the various construction sites. One area being developed stretches several kms along the highway, We’ve never seen anything on this scale before.

Back to the airport for our last sector to London.

Fun with friends

The perfect gift for a homeschooler.

Cadrona

Finding fairy doors in Cromwell

Opulent Emirates Hotel in Abu Dhabi

Superchill Cromwell

It's hard to demonstrate the monstrous size of this tapestry in the atrium

A very small section of a huge development all being built at once.