Day 15: Thursday 12th December
Mixed feelings today. Our long adventure to New Zealand is coming to an end. Lots of wonderful experiences and memories to take back to England.
Our journey from Rotorua to Auckland was a lot more pleasant than we expected. We soon left Rotorua and found a route than wasn’t quite direct but thought it would be a nicer and quieter drive. And so it was. We drove all along the coast road and stopped for a walk in Miranda which was a massive expanse of mudflats full of birds with the Miranda Shorebird Centre which actually had some bird viewing hides.
How annoying, as we were packed to go home we no longer had any binoculars available and there were so many birds there. Oh well, we had a nice half hour walk along the shore and a stretch of our legs.
We stayed there for our drink and snack which consisted of a carton of fruit juice each and half a banana each, the remains of our breakfast from our B&B and the last of our packet of chocolate cookies which we had eaten daily since buying in Franz Josef, miraculously they lasted until our very last day!
We then travelled another hour or so and wanted to stop for a cup of tea and may be something else to eat. We ended up finding a café in Clevedon, The Corner Kitchen and Bar, where we actually had a cooked lunch, mine being fish and chips. Our car had to be back by 5.00 and not knowing what the traffic would be like, the nearer we got to Auckland the more we thought we would rather be earlier rather than late. We also found that the day was the end of the school year and they were starting their summer break. We passed several schools with notices displaying prize giving day. It did seem a bit strange as we are so used to the school year ending in July. Anyway we didn’t know if this might impact on the traffic so we made our way to Omega Car Rentals in Auckland only hitting traffic for the last 20 minutes of the journey and were only on the motorway for about 5 km, so all was good. After dropping the car off at about 4.00 and getting their airport shuttle we arrived at the airport about 4.45 for our 10.55 flight! Yes it was rather early but at least we could check ourselves in via the machines and drop our bags off immediately so we then could just relax and browse in some shops for any last minute souvenirs. After a while of sitting in some fairly comfy arm chairs we moved to get a drink and found a good place to watch the planes taxiing, taking off and landing. We had the perfect view to watch all the comings and goings at the airport including Gate Gourmet, Sky Food and all the luggage and cargo trucks. It passed the next hour or so, meanwhile there were continual announcements that the check in computer had broken down and they were doing their best to fix it. I thought this might affect our flight, but was hoping our passengers might have all got through before this happened. Luckily my fears were unfounded, the time actually passed remarkably quickly and we boarded on time.
After flying Economy Class and stopping for 3 nights in San Francisco on the way there, we were now flying Premium Economy and a direct flight to London Heathrow with a fuel stop in LA. It was a good time to leave as it was night time for the first flight and I actually slept for 8 hours! The next flight then seemed to pass very quickly as I had now got out my Suguru puzzle book which had travelled all around New Zealand with me and never been looked at! With a a few other things to occupy me, we soon found us landing nearly an hour early at Heathrow.