Our Forever Family: train, bus, ferry...what was I thinking?!?!?!?!?!

oh my goodness, what is wrong with me?
When I was about 18 or 19, something like that, Aunty Nae and I were planning a trip down to see the Chch Ormsbys. We could have flown down and back but I came up with a brilliant idea. Go down by train/ferry/train and fly home. I thought it was going to be so cool, something new and exciting.

Boy was I mistaken. It turned out to be one of the most torturous and slow and regretful (is that a word?) experiences of my life....and Aunty Nae's too I believe. We laugh about it every now and then, but it's more to reminisce and joke on the nightmare that it was and remind ourselves never to get sucked into doing it, or anything like it again.

That leads me to my blog post for today.

Last night Daddy Joe got home from work and said that he thought Friday would be an early finish from him. Straight away I was excited and started thinking of what we could do when he got home, around 1pm was his estimated home time.

I had a brainwave, how about we all (parents, a pre-schooler, toddler and baby!) go on an adventure by train and ferry over to Devonport. Wow, that would be so cool. Daddy Joe said yes so I told the girls and that's the last thing they both talked about as they fell asleep. Cool!

We spent this morning talking about it some more and at 1pm Daddy Joe called to say he was about 5 minutes away from home.

We let Seth finish his sleep and got ready to leave.......Let the adventure begin!!!!

The plan was to have Seth in the backpack carrier thing and the girls walking or in the double buggy. Perfect, except the double buggy had flat tyres we realised 10 minutes before the train was due to arrive or leave should I say. We still wanted to take it but needed a gas station to pump them up at. That meant getting the girls to walk until we came across one. They were more than happy to oblige by walking beside the empty pushchair, but not long into the journey the novelty of that wore off.

Anyways, at 3:10pm the train arrived. When we've been on the train in the past we've paid cash for the tickets when the man/woman walks through the carriages. I'd seen something on the news recently about paying a different way, but I didn't know what the electronic 'tag on/tag off' stations were for. So we got on and didn't pay anything. Oops.

About 2 stations down the track and 'are we nearly there?' started. Um let me think 'no, there's about 13 more stations to go'. No crying yet though.

I knew in advance that there were upgrades being done on the tracks at Britomart so in Newmarket we had to get off and get on a bus into town. Cool I thought, another mode of transport!

When we tried to leave the Newmarket station, 2 guys gave us a hardtime about having not paid (where should we have done it?) He started to say 'if this happens on Monday......' to which I snapped 'Don't worry mate, it won't happen on Monday, we won't be using the trains again!!!!!!!!!'

So we paid for the trip in from Ranui and went out to the bus stop. Ella fell over on the way but we made it to the right spot in one piece (or 5 pieces should I say).

When they saw us with 3 kids a big baby backpack and double buggy they looked at eachother (bus driver and 2 train employees) and said 'um can we take that stroller?' You damn well can mate, or else!!! They made us fold it down in a hurry and all the bananas, crackers and toffee pops fell out in the isle of the bus.....Not ideal but we made it work.

Ella needed to go to the toilet. She's so good now at telling me. We just needed to find one though. Stressful! We got to Britomart and Joe ran back down the road to a bike shop that we'd come past to pump up the stroller tyres. I took the 3 kids for a toilet stop and we cracked open the box of crackers.

Then across the road for the boat. Fun and new. Was so cool to see the girls excited faces as they experienced something for the first time. Faith loved watching the other boats and Ella loved sitting outside and getting all the wind in her hair. I sat and fed Seth, the first time out of the backpack in about 2 hours and he was still happy as Larry.

At Devonport it was really windy so Daddy Joe took the girls to the park for a 1/2 hour play while I sat at the wharf playing with Seffy. No one ever goes there so how do those businesses survive is what I pondered for that time.

We just made it back to the boat in time, sprinting through the ferry building. By this time Ella had very very heavy eyelids and started being very clingy. So I carried her while Daddy Joe pushed Faith in the pushchair, carried Seth in his arms and wore the backpack.

We went straight over to McDs when we got into the city and that kept everyone quiet for about 2 minutes. Then Ella remembered she was tired and cried unconsolably until we packed our things away to head back to the bus stop. When she realised we had to get on the bus and train again the crying got louder!!!!!

She fell asleep on me walking to the bus stop and just when we arrived there with a few minutes to spare, Daddy Joe asked me if I'd bought the tickets to go home. We'd wanted to do it when we belatedly bought the first ones but they said tickets are only valid for 2 hours so that wouldn't work...what the? So he ran back to Britomart while I stood at the cold, noisy bus stop with the kids. The bus arrived and about 40 people rushed on in front of us. All I could think was 'are you kidding me???' I ended up squished in at the back with Seth and the 2 girls were on the seat across from me. Faith was happily looking out the window and I'd put Ella down asleep sitting up. The way her legs fell left her asleep slouched over and thankfully she stayed that way without falling off her seat until we got to Newmarket. Daddy Joe just made it onto the bus with the pushchair right up the front.

When we got off we went straight into the train terminal and went down the wrong side. We'd gone down to the platform for the Onehunga and Pukekohe trains. Damn! We had to go back up the lift and down on the other side to get to our train. If it left while I crossed over there could have been a major meltdown. Thankfully that didn't happen, however we got there to find out we had a 25 minute wait. By this time Ella was awake in my arms screaming so we danced the time away and finally boarded our ride home.

Then came the last straw. When we got on the train there was still about 7 minutes sitting time before it left the station. Ella was grumpy and grizzly so I was just cuddling her and rubbing her back. Out of the blue, the crying turned into 4 big spews all down both of our pants. Hot as watery, chicken nuggets! Oh man, are you kidding me? Daddy Joe and I just looked at eachother and smiled. I cleaned us up as best as I could then cuddled her tighter and she fell asleep again.

About 2 stops later 7 people got in at our door and all sat right around me. I looked down at Daddy Joe who was smirking at me from the other end of the carriage. Out of all the seats around us they'd plonked themselves down right around us and they'd smell Ella's spew, how embarrassing! It wasn't too bad really, I'm sure they wouldn't have known. But every now and again I got a whiff of nuggets spew and smiled.

When we reached destination Ranui it was heaven. We got off the train and all did a victory dance. We'd made it. Even lil' Ella Bella did a little smile. I think it was then I remembered about the Christchurch Train/Ferry saga and I cracked up.

Didn't I learn my lesson from last time? Obviously not.
Have I learnt my lesson now?

To tell you the honest truth I don't know if I have. From the Chch train trip me and Aunty Nae have a funny story and shared experience. That's not a bad thing. It's not like we ever reminisce on plane trips we had down there, It was the stinkness of the trip that made it fun-ish

From today, I'll now have a fun and special memory of a cool adventure we did as a family. And despite the challenges and stress and exhaustion I feel right now, I can go to bed tonight happy knowing that I did something special that I could have chosen not to do. That would have been easier, but no where near as good....

Over and Out. We were out from 3pm-8:30pm for this little jaunt and I'm knackerd.
I'll add the pictures to this and post it tomorrow.
I'm spent, and I can hear Daddy Joe snoring in the lounge like a ...... train! so I guess he's had it as well!

Oh and I should say that we all really did have a good time, honestly. But I'm not in a hurry to do it again any time soon. Maybe train trips can be a 10 yearly thing for me.

Seffy waiting for his first train ride

My lil' Billy in her cute horsey boots. Starting to get tired as we waited in the city to get on the train

After a play at Devonport waiting to get on the ferry back to the city....Ella all tuckered out.

Sitting on the very, very windy boat deck


Seffy's 1st time in a real pushchair. He's usually in the snap 'n go		.

Just before this photo she was almost falling asleep on her seat

Waiting at the bus stop in town to get to our train in Newmarket. Ella finally relaxed on my shoulder and it was so nice to snuggle my baby girl, doesn't happen often!