Friday 6th April was a Good Friday for our group. Finally, the day that we had all been looking forward to for so long had arrived and there we were at Nelson Airport resplendent in our “La Nouvelle-Zélande’ black jackets ready to take on the world and our 34 hour trip to France. Many of the hardworking parents were there to see us off and their colourful waves from the rooftop lookout would have made a great photo!

 Until you have flown half-way around the world, some of it during daylight hours, it is not easy to comprehend the size of that world, the expanse of empty land that there is and the sheer distance New Zealand is from just about anywhere.

Only one and a half hours to Auckland and Jesse managed to acquire a large red lipstick kiss from a rather gorgeous female bunny in a duty-free shop, then four hours to Melbourne where a cumbersome transit procedure by officious Ozzie officials had many of the kids body-scanned with a metal detector and Ms Sherwood drug-tested! Then we were back on the plane with less than an hour’s break for our next and longest leg.

But even a 14 hour flight can be endured if you use your time well. Jesse managed 3 films, 7 TV programmes and several games, one dinner, one breakfast and not much sleep – he didn’t have time!

Next, 4 hours in Dubai Airport with untold flash shops and loads of people from all over the world in a variety of different outfits mostly new to us, followed by the leg to Nice in a smaller and, thankfully, less-crowded plane where, it felt that at last we were getting there, since the flight attendants and most other people on the plane spoke French.

One young man, dressed in a full-length white ‘shirt’, took a particular interest in the kids, what they were doing and especially where they were from. He’s a radiologist, from Tunisia originally but now living in Switzerland. Although his parents, who live in Nice and were also on the plane, have no English whatsoever, he speaks French, Arabic, Italian and English. He could not believe that most students in NZ learn only English. The only place in NZ he had heard of was Auckland and the only people the All Blacks, and so was fascinated to learn that we have volcanos, ski resorts, the Abel Tasman and Maori. Even his father knew that we had lots of ‘moutons’ and was delighted by some of my photos of them!

The flight provided great views of desert, desert and more desert, and we were quite glad to leave behind Iraq and Baghdad airspace and move on to the mountains of eastern Turkey, and across Bosnia and Croatia, Italy and finally to Nice.

NICE is nice!: First impressions: lots of colourful buildings with cute little carved balconies, crowds of people parading the streets at 5pm, trams, having to look right before crossing, a huge mix of ethnic backgrounds amongst the people, friendly welcomes, and always, always a fascination for Kiwis and all things New Zealand.

The hoodies are catching much attention. We have already been complemented for our ‘beautiful’ jackets.

By the time we had caught the bus into town, made our way to the hostel (photo) and had a much-awaited shower, time was getting on and many were swaying on their feet. But were they allowed  to go to bed? No way! Here we were, finally in that wildly romantic and full of surprises country we had been looking forward to for so long. Exploration had to begin!

A quick walk to the beach involved mingling with the hundreds of people out ‘promenading’ the streets as tends to happen when you live in an apartment and want to get out for a while. The Mediterranean, whipped up by some wild winds, was looking stunning – wild frothy waves setting of the azure blue water – no wonder this whole coast is called La Cote d’Azur.
From there to the chateau on the hill, or what remains of it after several forays between the French and the Italians over ownership of this part of the country. But the climb up the hill took its toll on several amongst us, making them realise they had had neither enough food, drink, or sleep in the past 24 hours.

After a minor glitch where we parted company very briefly and unexpectedly with one of our members who ‘fell asleep’ while walking, some hot pizza and crepes went down nicely followed by some very frothy hot chocolates. The restaurateur was nothing short of a comedian. Loving his ability to speak a little English plus his realisation that he should be insisting on English from the kids, he delighted us with crazy talk, backchat, flamboyant gestures and a group photo. He is the one in the middle pulling a funny face. Turns out he comes from Le Quesnoy. The northerners' claim of super-friendliness is obviously true!