Tasman to clear, she also spent time, albeit limited, with Beverly Shepherd, who was now an airline captain. Trans-Tasman crossing On 16 October, Batten departed for New Zealand at 4:35am, local time. She left from the Royal Australian Air Force's airbase at Richmond, the longer runway giving her more space to get her heavily loaded Gull in the air. The weather forecast was still not ideal; rather than flying direct to Auckland, where she was to land at Mangere Aerodrome, she decided to aim for New Plymouth, a slightly shorter distance over the sea, and then fly north to Māngere. Before she left, at 4:30am in front of a large press contingent, she specifically instructed that if she came down in the Tasman, no one was to be sent to look for her. She did not want anyone's life to be put at risk. The flight to New Plymouth, about from Richmond, took nine and a half hours, a record for the Trans-Tasman crossing. Due to rain clouds and squalls, she flew below most of the way so she could observe her drift. She did a flypast for a crowd gathered at New Plymouth airfield and then flew north to Māngere as planned. She landed just after 5:00pm in front of a crowd of around 6,000 people. She had set a record of eleven days, 45 minutes for a direct flight from England to New Zealand; this would stand for 44 years before it was broken. She also set a record of ten and a half hours for the crossing from Sydney to Auckland. In her autobiography, she described the cheers from the crowd at Māngere as the "greatest moment in my life", sentiments she expressed in her speech to the crowd. Her father was among those who greeted her, although he was given short-shrift as Batten focussed on the adulation from the crowd and the official reception party. Batten's feat was widely reported around the world, with media comparing her to Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart. The Times in London called the endeavour "an act of deliberate courage". Telegrams flooded in; according to Batten, there were 1,700 cables received from overseas. The Government provided her with four secretaries to help her respond to all of them. At a civic reception held in Auckland a few days later, the city's mayor announced the naming of "Jean Batten Place" in her