Honolulu to Auckland

It took 24 hours to get from Hawai'i to Auckland - 48 if you count the day lost to the international date line. As the plane hurtled down Honolulu's runway, the brakes slammed on, the captain's panicked voice came through the tannoy and the plane was delayed just enough to miss the connection at Sydney. (Incidentally, am I the only person who thinks air travel is unnatural. Whose idea was it to travel the world in a tin box, hurtling through the air for no other reason than oil burns. Don't get me wrong - I'm not frightened of air travel. I just think it's faintly ridiculous).

Anyway, while stressed NZ families tore themselves apart, I was quite looking forward to a complimentary hotel room to myself - with no snoring, half-naked backpacker in the next bed keeping my awake. Even better, Quantas paid for Holiday Inn to prepare a buffet of various tepid meat-based stews and casseroles. Naturally everybody felt duty-bound to eat as much as possible, whether they were hungry or not. In this, New Zealanders are the same as the Brits.

At least during this stop-over, I had some company and spent most of the time with two backpacking girls. One was Swiss, but the other came from Darlington. Small world, eh? My fellow North Easterner seemed nice, eager, a little middle-class but very friendly. A bit square, I thought.

Next morning, while we waited at the departure gate for the flight to NZ she asked me to look after her bags. When she returned there were some tell-tale traces of white powder in both nostrils. Obviously I pretended to have seen nothing. Now I'm not an innocent when it comes to drugs, but I must admit I was fairly shocked. First, she was so square. Second, surely if there is one place you don't want to be caught with blow it's at an airport. There were dogs everywhere when we came though Sydney the night before. Perhaps she nipped into downtown Sydney to score after the rest of us went to bed? Then I think I ought to be more generous. Perhaps it might be a new form of travel-sickness medicine? One best taken nasally. Or possibly a new and improved vitamin powder? This fails to convince.

While we wait to be called, I can't work out why she would take cocaine just before a flight. For the next 3 hours she's going to be strapped into the same not-very-spacious airline seat - quite likely trapped between chubby taciturn pensioners and/or bickering families. It doesn't really seem like the best time to for a cocaine high. And of course, part of me is annoyed that the selfish cow wasn't willing to share.

Things I have learnt:

- at the time of writing, there are just over 27 million seconds until next year's Rugby world cup starts.