Oversize luggage flying to Dunedin

My housemate Beccy arrives home from yoga on her bicycle with flushed cheeks and a smile on the dot of 8:30am when she said she would drive us to the airport. She drinks her tea in the passenger seat while I drive. When we get to Pigeon Hole (Luke and Christy’s warehouse) their stuff is piled by the door and they are locking up Nona. Beccy and I carry the bike box together and it just fits in the tray.

Hoola hoops in their moroon velvet bag and the old hard green suitcase full of juggling balls, gaffa tape, inflatable palm trees. All of us carrying our own clothes as carryon.

At check-in it turns out we are 20kgs under the limit and we all laugh, relieved. Luke says he wants to travel the world with just his little carryon back pack. ‘I reckon I could fit my sleepingbag in here and that’s about all I need...’

The only luggage that actually fits on the carousel is the suitcase. Hoops are wrapped in fragile tape and go with the bike box to oversize. We watch them disappear into behind the flaps and it feels a little strange and like we should follow them and make sure they’re ok.

There are movies on the plane and we all have books and lots to say to each other so we wish the flight went for so much longer than 3 hours.

At Auckland, waiting for our Dunedin flight Christy and Luke practice their juggling for Wiped Out in the airport café, still struggling to remember what comes next

We fly to Dunedin over a bright stretch of sunset clouds and after half an hour or so there starts to be mountain peaks sticking out like rocks out of rippling low-tide sand. Luke says like iceberg tips because you know how much is beneath them. Fly along the mountain range and the sun goes down and then comes back up because we are flying towards it.

Joan and Chris (Christy’s mum and her partner) pick us up from the airport. Stationwagon with all our gear in the back, hanging over into the passenger seats and Christy and I sitting hunched with the cardboard over our heads.

I got the best room in the house. The upstairs with windows on three sides looking down at the harbour and the city lights.