This was always going to be a tricky day to write about given that it was planned to be pretty boring; finish packing, plane to Auckland, plane to San Francisco, plane to Portland, go to bed. Not the most stimulating day.

These things however never go quite to plan. On our last trip Brussels turned into Paris after somebody bombed their airport. Nothing so dramatic this time round although we continue to upset the travel gods which meant a somewhat eventful day. We did manage a couple of firsts;

• Sitting on the end of the runway in Auckland everything looked promising until some muppet decided to fly their drone around controlled air space. Our first delay while the pilot worked out how to take off in the other direction

• One of the things you often see on the TV actually happened half way across the Pacific when there was a call asking if there was a doctor on the plane! Also meant we met some nice paramedics when we landed in San Fran.

• We then had the joy of standing in immigration for two hours. Almost felt sorry for the staff as the line behind us was as big as the one in front. We then added another hour getting through security for our next flight.

• At least this flight was on time until we were on the runway when they found a generator hadn’t started – add two more hours to our trip while the nice men sorted that out.

Eventually made it to our hotel in Portland about 10pm US time, some 29 hours on the go.

The pleasing thing is that everything remained calm and met with an “ok, what’s next” attitude which is encouraging given the program for the next couple of weeks.

Now for a good sleep and into it tomorrow.