Homesick and out of money

English backpacker Kate Baker had just been told it would be another three weeks before she would be travelling home. Photo / Steven McNicholl

English backpacker Kate Baker wiped tears from her eyes as she left the Emirates counter at Auckland International Airport.

The 21-year-old tourist from Devon, who has been travelling in New Zealand for three months, had just been told it would be another three weeks before she would be travelling home.

She was among dozens of travellers disrupted yesterday - and among thousands trying to leave the country - to be told they can't continue their plans because they don't have pre-planned accommodation in Dubai, where a backlog of travellers has built up because of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano.

She opted to use the last of her credit card funds to buy a $294 flight to Christchurch.

Ms Baker was heading there to rely on the hospitality of the only person she knows in the country - a Christchurch woman who her mother has been writing to as a penpal since the women were 11 years old.

"I just want to go home now," Ms Baker said.

More wine tasting

German traveller Katharina Grabowski plans to spend the extra 10 days she has in New Zealand the same way she has spent the last two months - "testing New Zealand's wines".

The 27-year-old from Frankfurt was told yesterday her connecting flight had been postponed until April 29.

Ms Grabowski was upbeat about her lengthened stay here, but had some concerns about her finances after her stay in New Zealand.

She was making plans to get back from the airport to the backpackers she has been staying at in Parnell when she spoke to the Herald yesterday.

"It's better to be on a verandah in Auckland than an airport in Dubai."

Medical miracle

Two German university students began yesterday fearing they were about to miss the first two weeks of their fifth year of medical school.

But an act of kindness may have saved them from missing their studies.

Christina Haug and Andreas Kuenle, both 24, have been travelling in New Zealand for the past three months during their university break.

The pair were stranded in Auckland because of a backlog of travellers in stopover locations.

They were to pass through Dubai on their way back to Frankfurt.

But, a chance meeting in the Emirates queue saw them meet fellow German Claudia Heinze, 23.

Ms Heinze, from Stuttgart, was supposed to be meeting her father and sister in Dubai but, because European flights have been stopped, her family are unable to meet her there.

So, Ms Heinze offered the couple the spare beds in her hotel room and the pair made the flight to Dubai last night.

A quiet flight

Auckland woman Natalie Rooseboom arrived from South Africa on a flight that went through Dubai yesterday and said she had benefited from the fact that European flights had not been able to connect to her service.

"The flights were half empty," she said.