Sorry I haven't posted more on the NZ leg of the tour, but things didn't get off to a brilliant start.
First off my Qantas flight from Sydney to Wellington was delayed by 2.5 hours because the plane was broken. Then an hour after takeoff, the pilot announced that the flight was being diverted to Auckland because Wellington airport has a 1:30 curfew (Wellington is the capital and apparently the politicians there don't like being kept awake by aircraft noise...)
So instead of arriving in Wellington at 11:40 at night, I arrive in Auckland at 3:30 in the morning with no hotel and a bunch of interviews set up from 9am the following day. Fortunately heroic Hodder employee Suzy got out of bed to meet me. She whisked me off to an airport hotel, arranged for all my interviews to be done by telephone from Auckland and then we boarded a flight to Wellington at noon.
This meant that I barely made it to my Wellington events on time. I did a great signing at The Children's Bookshop (Run by the very nice John and Ruth) followed by an evening event for 500 people at a local school.
This was great, except for the dodgy microphone and me getting hissed for saying, 'The great thing about being here in Australia,' at the start of my speech. It seems Kiwi's don't like getting accused of being Australian!
I had to belt through the signing in record time in order to make my flight back to Auckland. After arriving in the hotel at 1am I was so knackered that I slept through my alarm the next morning and almost missed an interview with Shine TV, followed by a live spot on Radio New Zealand.
In the afternoon I spoke to and signed for 800 kids at Blockhouse Intermediate school, then signed for 100s more at Borders.
And that's why I haven't posted on this blog for the last few days.
Today was my first day off since the tour began 14 days ago and I spent it with my old friends Jim & Jude plus their kids, Sam, Lucy and George and Cilla the dog. It was very cool catching up with them after more than nine years and spending the day hanging out at their house, watching the kids football matches, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows, walking on the beach and finishing up with a flash meal at the swanky and frankly rather awesome Westin hotel.
I'd love to say I was able to spend Sunday with them too, but I've got to get up at 6am and fly to Brisbane for the final two days of my tour.
8 comments:
wow that's one of the worst holidays I've ever heard of. I guess that's what you get if you go to Kiwiland...
hope you never get such a bad tour again!
hay i live in N.Z and i went to robs signing in wellington heaps of tourists love new zealand and i reckon its real cool here. but i have to admit the airport thingys really weird ha!
i cant believe u called nz australia! ha u fuckwit
BlockhouseBAY Intermediate, WestOn Hotel. Silly Rob. How dare you call us Australians! And Wellington just plain sucks... Full of crazy politicians. Auckland is much better.
So how's SHERRUB?
it wasn't a local school you went to, it was the best school in the area...Scots College. And of course we dont like being called aussies. we are their superiouss
Hey, I was there for one of your appearances. It was at Blockhouse BAY Intermediate, but my class was only visiting there to see you. You should feel special, because we {Glen Eden Intermediate] and them [Blockhouse Bay] are rival schools.
Haha... im kiwi and we don't like being called Aussie coz NZ & AU are rivals!
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