The Rocketman Fails To Liftoff
WHAT A WEEKEND. My God.
Friday morning up bright and early, took Biscuit to the Kennels. He gets so excited now when he goes in the car, soon as we turned up the street to the kennels he got even MORE exicted, running around in the back etc. Dropped him off, all good. Back home and we all got packed up to head up for our big trip to see Elton John Live in Auckland! We'd been talking to the kids about it heaps, imagining what it was going to be like etc. Sadly earlier in the week I'd read quite a few stories about how it was going to be quite a week weekend, always annoying. So we made sure to pack raincoats and shoes for rain and we even had some little plastic ponchos left over ready to put on if it really started to rain for the concert. We piled in the car, bags packed and off we went! Holy hell it was slow going to Auckland. The Napier Taupo had heaps of roadworks and it was raining lots, so we had to go really slow in heaps of parts of it. A normally 1h 45m journey took us about 3 hours, it didn't help that we had to have two "I need to go to the toilet I'm so busting I'm going to wee myself" stops on the way.
We got to Taupo and stopped at the French Cafe that's there and had a little bite to eat and another toilet stop, that took another hour I guess. Then we got back in the car and drove until we got to Hamilton, where we spent a couple of hours at the big Mall there - The Base Shopping Centre. Beth was blown away by it "Why don't we have one of these in Napier Daddy?" Because, Kiddo, Napier's tiny! The big stop in Hamilton was to try and avoid the traffic heading into Auckland, we didn't want to arrive right on peak hour. Especially given it was Auckland Anniversary Weekend, a long weekend, and we thought there'd be heaps of traffic on the road (though expected most it to be leaving, not going the direction into town like we were)
Once we left the Mall, the rain started to really come down. I mean REALLY come down, it was insane. After a while Sarah said she really didn't want to drive because of how heavy and a bit scary it was, so we pulled into a little truck stop area and swapped over. The rain was utterly insane. So many times the road was just a whiteout, you could only see just in front of you. It was that sort of rain where the windscreen wipers on high speed just can't keep up, let alone when you're behind a truck or a trailer that's kicking up heaps of spray, of which of course it seemed in that weather every second vechile we encountered was. As we got just out of Mercer all the traffic ground to a halt and we had to wait ~30 minutes while Police cars slowly crept up behind and next to us. Eventually we got past the source of the accident, a MASSIVE puddle had formed on the right hand land of the motorway (it was a two lane going in the same direction strech of road) and obviously one of the cars had driven into it at high speed, lost control and bashed into the other. I mean it was a terrible puddle, but I can just imagine it was one of the many insane dickheads that just drove along the road at 110km in conditions that 80km seemed unsafe in.
Further into Auckland we encountered just massive puddles on the motorway in places I'd never have expected them. The car aquaplaned over a few bits of the road in places where it seemed like we were driving over a river. Other cars going past us through up HUGE streams of spray. It was quite scary! All I could was just shut up and concentrate harder than I've ever concentrated before driving!
Eventually we got into Auckland and then... we missed the turnoff we needed to take. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because that was the turnoff to get to Mt Smart Stadium, where Elton John was playing that night (he was booked to play Friday night and Saturday night). And at about the time we went past, ~7:30pm, they'd just accounced it was called off because of the rain. The promoters had always said "Elton plays Rain, Hail or Shine" but the amount of rain made everything unsafe, equipment was sitting in pools of water etc.
Eventually we got to Ben and Di's house, only Ben was there because poor Di was at the Elton John concert. Or as it turns out the cancelled concert. And when we finally sat down and looked at our phones to read the news etc we realised just how bad the rainstorm(s) had been in Auckland. Houses were getting washed away, people were getting rescued etc. It was insane. Ben got messages from Di saying she wasn't even going to attempt to drive back home (a decision we told Ben was totally the right idea) and she stayed at her Sister's place instead. We headed off to bed, tired but glad to have made it and hoping that maybe, just maybe, Elton would go ahead on Saturday night.
Saturday morning we woke and the news about Auckland was grim. 2 people dead, 2 people unaccounted for, the airport was flooded and shut, roads everywhere were shut, and a State of Emergency had been declared for 7 days in Auckland. Holy shitballs. We arrived at exactly the wrong time. We kept an eye on the Elton John page, sure they'd have to cancel it but they remained tight lipped. Di eventually arrived back home, great to see her! I rang and cancelled the Holy Moley game we were going to play, they fully understood given the circumstances. Just as we thought maybe, just maybe the Saturday night concert WAS going to go ahead, they announced it was also cancelled. Which was of course the right decision, I mean the city was in chaos, people were dead etc. So we had to tell the kids, Beth was quite upset, Theo not so much.
Ben and I went to get some food from the Supermarket and we came back to Ben and Di's had some some Roast Chicken rolls (Theo ate 3. THREE. I only ate 2). And then as we were washing up Di mentioned again she wasn't feeling that great and Ben said you should probably test yourself just to be safe and WOOP WOOP WOOP Di tested postitive for COVID.
FUCKING HELL.
So we rather quickly packed up and left. Because, I should stress, we thought Di would want to isolate in the bedroom downstairs so that Jacob and Abbey didn't get it (or Ben). The kids were uttery devested by this stage, not only was Elton John not happening but now we had to leave their friends behind as well. What a nightmare!
So yea, we left and drove to Taupo, which wasn't anywhere near as much of a mission as it'd been the day before coming into Auckland. Even though it was still a disaster zone, the roads out of Auckland weren't too bad at all. When we got to Taupo though it was quite late, we found a nice little Thai place to eat at (After walking around in the now pouring rain) and I rang up a Motel and managed to talk the lady down $80 on the last room she had. We just didn't want to drive home to Napier on a road that was very dangerous, we'd been told there were a lot of slips and stuff becase of how much rain Napier had had. So we checked into our little motel room and stayed the night there, then got up this morning and packed up, had breakfast in Taupo and then drove back home. The road wasn't too bad, certainly a few dodgy bits on it, but not as bad I thought it was going to be. That said it probably have been cleaned up earlier that morning.
So, we've made it back home safe n sound ready for the kids first day back at school tomorrow. Elton John was cancelled, then Di got Covid. Oh and we found out this morning Ben has also tested postive now for Covid, so there's a very good chance we'll test postive in the next day or two as well because we were with them for a solid ~18 hours. Oh well.
Certainly NOT AT ALL the weekend we had planned. But we're safe - it's terrible for all those people in Auckland who've had houses damanged, or cars wrecked, or lives lost. Our weekend was nothing compared to them.
Anyway - that'll do. I'm going to go and pickup Biscuit the insane dog from his boarding.
Tim