Tahiti to New Zealand

We all woke up just before the alarm. We checked out and made our way down the hill and across the road to the luggage storage facility and picked up our gear. Check in was fairly slow but we were fortunate to be near the front of the ever increasing queue. The temperature was rising rapidly as the sun came up and the fans struggled to keep the air circulating over the queue. We were glad to make it through passport control and in to the air conditioned waiting lounge.


Will discovered a playground area in the lounge that had slides and a big house for kids to play in. It was surrounded by sofa seats and so we dumped all our gear and set him loose. He ran around for over an hour going up and down the slides, climbing over the walls of the house and attempting to speak to some of the French kids. He found a girl who looked about five years old that he kept going over to and giving her hugs while she stroked his hair which was very cute to watch.


We boarded our plane and after a little bit of noise and some French toast for breakfast Will settled down and started to get sleepy. He listened to the “Small, small world” recording on my cellphone several times before dropping off to sleep still clutching it tightly. We packed him into his bassinet and he slept for a couple of hours while we watched Astronaut Farmer and several episodes of various American TV sitcoms. Somewhere over the Pacific, our plane crossed the International Date Line...