I usually escape the holiday madness that is the Christmas New year period. Unfortunately I have returned from three weeks in Asia a little to early.
The early return was not of my doing, it was rather the making of airlines that have cut services in response to the world wide decrease in passenger loadings. Speaking of which, I hear that domestically, Qantas have decided to cut many of their services in and around New Zealand. The good guys at Qantas decided to make these cuts in January and give only a few weeks notice. This has of cause caused much anger from effected holiday makers who had booked month in advance during this very busy period.
Airline seats are as rare as Moa teeth at this time of year so it pays to book well in advance. This little bit of advice I did not follow and resulted in limited seats available and hence my early return.
News from the front line of one of New Zealand’s busiest holiday resorts is it is absolute chaos at the moment. The supermarket carparks are full by 9.30am and the queues at the petrol stations goes for miles. The problem with getting gas is you are waiting behind large trailed boats that take up all the pumps. Speaking of boats, if you want to launch one you better get to the boat ramp early.
Forget brunching, even on sunny days when all the punters are meant to be using those boats. If you are lucky enough to get a park then you have the issue of getting a table. If luck is on your side and you score both be prepared for a lengthy wait for your coffee as staff cant cope with the crowds. This last point always fails to amuse me, you would think that staffing levels would reflect demand, but these are extraordinary times.
If it is a rainy day you are basically house bound, as swarms of holiday makers transcend on the town centre. These little tourist towns aren’t designed to handle five times there normal population so you can only imagine the traffic congestion that occurs.
The moral of my ranting is that it is best not to plan a holiday to NZ between the 20th December and the third Monday of January.