“I don’t need a hotel room, I’ll just kill time by drinking at a bar instead.”

I’ve said this many times but somehow it never sinks in that it’s a bad idea, including yesterday.  With a 7 am departure from Christchurch to BKK with a cup of coffee in Sydney I reckoned that trying to wake up at 3 am to get to the airport for a 4 am check-in was too much hassle and I never sleep in those situations anyway, so let’s just sip beers at the bar.  All day… and ultimately spending more than I would’ve on a cheap room and a case of beer.  Oops.

I arrived at the airport last night around 9 pm feeling pretty toasty but hoping to find a place to grab a few nightcaps before curling up on a bench.  The Christchurch airport is a slow place past dinner time though and there wasn’t a drink to be had.  I did discover a “SkyLounge” where for $10 you can crash on a beanbag chair for the evening.  I wrapped my old snot rag around my eyes, threw my vest over my head for extra noise/light control and actually managed to sleep a few hours.  I wasn’t going to take off my boots – the insides of which smell like the asshole of a skunk that’s spent the better part of a summer on the side of the TransCanada – but this chick next to me kept rustling a bag of Doritos without coughing any over so I said fuck it and went into maximum comfort / minimum consideration mode.

After my flight to Sydney, a short layover and then a bounce up to Bangkok, I reckon to be on the ground moving in about sixteen hours.  Fingers crossed for a debacle-free experience unlike that which has befallen the rest of the team.

Oh, and New Zealand is a really nice place, I’ve once again become “James MacKay of No Fixed Address” for the past month with the last two weeks on South Island here, definitely coming back at some point.  Here’s a picture of a kea I saw.  They’re sassy and as such I like the cut of their jib.