Day 66 – Leaving Auckland/Arriving in Sydney

My flight to Sydney wasn’t until late afternoon at 4pm, so I had the morning to organise and repack my bag, chuck things I had gained for cooking etc away as I won’t need these anymore and just chill out until my flight. Had some breakfast, watched some TV and Stuart came and picked me up about 1pm. The airport isn’t that far away and on arrival I was the only person checking in, so I did that without a fuss and was on the other side in no time. My flight took off about 5 minutes early, we landed 30minutes early because of good wind, my bag was about the 5^th one out and I walked through customs without a hitch. WHAT HAS HAPPENED?! I’m not complaining but that is far from normal, I hope this is the beginning of good luck with my flights.

I got the train from the airport straight into the city and it was only a 10minute walk to where Valerie lives. So it took just under an hour from when my flight landed to walk through the door, which was amazing!

She had netball that evening so I just chilled out, watched home and away (as you do) went to woolworths and grabbed some dinner and just caught up with her when she came home. You can see a small amount of the opera house from her balcony and you can see the coca cola sign, which is cool!

Day 62 – Pretty boring day…

I feel like I’m playing a bit of a waiting game. I’m only back at Stuart’s because I have a flight out of Auckland on Tuesday. Yeah it’s nice to come back, share my stories with them and have fun but if I was to redo this trip I would do like most people I met and fly out of Christchurch but hey ho it is the way it is and I can’t complain to be stuck in New Zealand when the weather is nice and it really is great just to chill out for a few days in a family home after the crazy month on the bus and before I fly back to Australia. It’s also good to do some washing and hang up my clothes, even if it is just for a few days! So really my day was washing, reading, watching tv, eating, sleeping etc.

Once the kids were home I played with some Dinosaurs, did some colouring in; seriously Blue Peter should have snapped me up when they had the chance!

Day 61 – Auckland back to Titirangi.

It’s nice to wake up and not have to jump on a bus. After a few complications and not being able to call each other I finally skyped Danika! After this, I organised all of my bags and chucked away things I didn’t need anymore so I was back to my original 2 bags instead of 3. I knocked on Rach & Charli’s door to see what they were up too. We then wandered along Queens Street as the girls needed to get a few last things before their flight. I then went and chilled out in Albert Park again and read some more of my book as the weather is just beautiful! As I got back to the hostel my phone rang and Stuart was coming to get me in 5minutes so I quickly sorted all my stuff and walked to where I was meeting him. We got back to his and the kids were very excited to see me (who wouldn’t be!) I was introduced to a book called ‘A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree’ which is actually just ‘The 12 days of Kiwi Christmas’, why Louie wanted to read this book at this time of year I don’t know but it spoke about pies and rugby and other things!

Day 60 – Auckland.

I’ve never done this on my travels before but I thought it was a good idea to spend some time making a spreadsheet on how much I’ve spent so far. I was intrigued to work out how much roughly I’ve spent a night on accommodation here in New Zealand (the answer £14) and how much I’ve spent overall so far. It’s actually slightly less than I thought which is always good! I also think it’s helpful not only for future reference but to help other people that may want to do this too. Anyway, that’s how I spent my morning.

I was getting pretty hungry so I decided to go for a walk and find some lunch. I stopped in a cute little café called Buns on High Street. The workers were so friendly and the food was amazing, if the weather had been worse I could have stayed there all afternoon. Instead I made my way over to Albert Park to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, chill out and read some of my book. I’m currently reading The Book Thief, which has just been made into a film, I’m really enjoying it at the moment and I’m intrigued to see what they’ve done with it. By the way, not every book I read is because I want to see the film!

It was our official last night in New Zealand together. Rach & Charli jump on a plane to Bangkok super early on Friday morning so tonight is the one. Freddie & Charlie came over to join us at Base for our belated Pancake Day celebrations! Probably a good thing too as the best non-stick frying pan we could find didn’t have a handle, so Freddie ended up being in charge to use a tea towel to flip them. You can’t have Pancake Day without them being flipped and trying your best not to stick them to the ceiling! It was a great success, making me very happy! It is one of the best holidays of the year because it’s not a national thing so a lot of people don’t know what you are talking about.

Day 59 – Taupo to Auckland – PANCAKE DAY!

Originally Rach, Charli and I were going to stay another day in Taupo but there wasn’t any room at Base so they decided the night before to leave today instead. I decided to join them, as there was plenty of space on the bus, enough space for two seats each as well!

Our first stop just an hour up the road was in Rotorua. Before we arrived there we stopped just outside in Waiotapu to see the geothermal pools. The sign said ‘Acid waters attack and dissolve adjoining ground to digest many minerals in the rock, forming viscous mud pools.’ Basically the ground bubbles away and smells like sulphur. We dropped off and picked up people in Rotorua but I still managed to have two seats, WOO, GO ME!

Our lunch stop was in Matamata (near Hobbiton) but the three of us had been prepared and made lunch before we left meaning we were the guards of the bus as the driver left us in charge.

It was official, Kiwi Experience was over, our final bus arrived in Auckland at about 3 in the afternoon but it took us about an hour to check in because their system was down which was just a bit annoying. We didn’t end up in the same room but at least we were on the same floor.  I went for a walk around town but most things were closing up by the time I got out. Today was Pancake Day but we actually fell asleep before pancakes were made so we’ll just have to do it another day instead.