New Zealand: Flying for the long haul with two kids in tow
DADDY, when do they bring the porridge,” a little voice from the middle seat piped up. My husband and I exchanged glances over her head. In the list of things that we had prepared our three-and-a-half-year-old for before travelling to New Zealand — going to sleep on the plane, using the toilet on the plane, sitting in a seat on the plane for a long time — we never thought to warn her that there wouldn’t be porridge on the plane.
Five flights, 45 hours, five countries — and two kids under four. When I kissed a Kiwi on a random New Year’s Eve in Cork, little did I realise that I was setting in train a series of events that would have us sitting into the car at 7am on a cold December morning, sleepy 15-month-old Maya and her big sister Hannah tucked up in the back as we embarked on the epic trip to New Zealand. We were off to spend three and a half weeks with Scott’s family who live outside Nelson in the north of the South Island. It was a chance to exchange winter for summer, hang out with his family and introduce the girls to their first cousins. That’s if we all made it in one piece — and were still talking to each other when we got to the other side.
