As it was, I slept a little past my ten AM checkout. My friend Megan with the car offered to drive me and my bags somewhere but as she appeared in rattling good health and humour I declined the kind offer in case I was infectious with something nasty.
By this stage I was pretty much empty. Perhaps "drained" would be a better word. A couple of pain-killers and a glass of water was all I'd been able to keep down and even those were iffy.
Realistically, I should have tried for an extra day and reorganised my arrangements but I had to get home.
I packed up my kit, put on my walking shoes, left the key in the door, and hauled my bags up the steep driveway, along the street to the main road and a hundred metres or so to the bus stop.
Sunday morning bus service - that'd be pretty good, yeah?
Well, it wasn't great, but eventually a bus came along and I clambered aboard, wedged my bags in the barely adequate luggage rack, and settled into a senior citizen seat where I might have a good shot at the open door if I was overcome by a sudden gastric influence.
I passed the Oneroa library where my companions were busy swilling coffee, talking books, and exchanging hugs. I waved as I went past, possibly hauling a cargo of germs with me. Sorry, Waiheke.
The ferry was loading at the terminal with a supermassive queue. It wound around the terminal and then zig-zagged back and forth, everyone with a bag or a stroller or something to cart along. A few were smiling but I wasn't one of them, the only bright spot in my existence being a bit of seabreeze bringing fresh air with it.
I was hoping for a window seat when I eventually stowed my big yellow bag atop a mountain of luggage but I was left with a centre seat in a middle row on a pretty much sold-out voyage. Normally I enjoy a merry harbour cruise but it was all I could do to be happily miserable as I watched the distant towers of Auckland inch closer.
I spotted a friend board just before we left and she was lucky to find a seat on the other side of the cabin. When we got to the Auckland ferry terminal I hauled my bag outside and waited, just to touch base, but discovered after a minute or two that I really had to keep moving, maybe find a friendly rubbsh bin, maybe a railing I could hang onto while I aimed at the water.
Touch and go, really. At least I could plod along, dragging my bags, aiming for the train station. My detailed instruction sheet kind of ran out of puff at this point. merely instructing me to do the outward journey in reverse: "Ferry, Britomart, Puhinui, airport".
In hindsight, I should have grabbed a taxi, told the driver, "International", and saved myself a lot of misery, if not money.
Clear thinking wasn't really on the agenda at that point. I was on rails, a dour automaton.
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Speaking of rails, the train station departure board wasn't making a lot of sense, no matter how long I glared at it. "Pooey-nooey" wasn't listed as a place where the railway system was going today.
I hunted around for some sort of information counter, explained my needs in mangled NewZildish, and the chap told me through an anti-plague barrier and speaker system - good thinking there, Auckland Transport - that buses were running between some stations while they worked on upgrading the service.
Platform One, he said.
Platform One, when I worked out where it was and hauled my bags down the elevator, was distinguished by the rear end of a suburban train steadily diminishing in size.
Oh well, another one would be along Sunday soon, I guessed, and I still had hours before I needed to be at the airport. I found a bench near a handy rubbish bin and endured a long wait.
By this point, the hours of sleep I'd missed were catching up to me. If my bench had been a smidge longer I might have settled down on it and zonked off.
There was a crew on the train when it arrived. A driver who strode from one end of the three-car unit to the other and a conductor - I think he gave himself a grander title, Journey Experience Manager or something equally ridiculous - who announced in Train Garble that we'd be taking buses between two stations with forgettable and unpronounceable names. I figured we'd get to a place where we weren't going any farther and there'd be a bus. And hopefully someone who could politely tell me where to go.
Auckland is probably best described as "Sydney for Beginners" and the views from suburban trains rival those of the Western Suburbs. I regarded the passing scenery with minimal affection but at least the station names were matching the snapshot on my phone.
Eventually, the thing stopped, the driver trudged from one end to the other, and I figured this was the end of the line. I followed the crowd - a very sparse Sunday crowd - to the bus platforms outside where although plenty of uniformed railway people were standing around, nobody seemed to have any interest in helping a distressed and clueless Aussie.
I approached one of these Pasenger Happiness Officers and he grimly indicated with a thumb. "Over there. Twenny minutes."
Naturally, when a bus eventually arrived and passengers got on, I climbed aboard too. Luckily I checked with the driver. "We're going to Pooey-Nooey?"
He looked at me.
"Nope."
I looked at him.
"Yer want the RBS."
I looked at him some more. Royal Bank of Scotland? Rapid Barf System? Retching-by-Sea?
"Replacement Bus Service."
Oh, right.
I hauled my bags out again and the clustered Customer Experience Angels rolled their eyes in my direction.
Eventually, with my interest in living diminishing rapidly, a RBS bus arrived, I was stared onboard and I set off on a tour of train station car parks before arriving at Puhinui, which was unmistakable from my outward trip. A brace of big orange buses were just leaving, headed for the airport.
"You headed for the airport?" the bus driver asked as I retrieved my bags. "You want one of the orange buses. The stop's on the other side."
I thanked him for his sage advice and looked around for "the other side". Other side of the train tracks? Other side of the car park? Other side of the world?
I almost dragged my bags across the tracks before I spotted an orange sign at an empty bus stop. That'd be it.
A big orange bus arrived with Airport on the front. Not immediately, of course. My will to live had to decline a few more notches before that happened.
I still hadn't seen anything resembling a chemist or even a convenience store. My social media tribe was recommending electrolytes, whatever they were, and I was thinking hospital, or possibly a funeral home, might be more suited to my immediate needs.
Nevertheless, I was still upright, I was in a big orange bus with Airport on the front, I was aimed in the right direction.