Goodbye Aotearoa

We had been in touch by text with Jock Reid during the previous day and had hoped to meet up before departing. We spoke briefly on the Saturday morning, and it was obviously not going to be possible, but in our brief telephone conversation he extolled the virtues of the South Island where they had been. If it is that much nicer than the North then it clearly is like paradise. Making the long journey here is definitely worthwhile and has to be done again, even if the queues at check-in in Auckland get worse. There was a flight leaving for Los Angeles and the procedures for going to the USA take so long apparently. Even having checked-in on-line we had quite a wait and the 90% who hadn’t must have been getting incredibly frustrated.

Pam has been the perfect hostess for our time with her, and we felt so helpless that we were leaving and she would be without her car until it was fixed. She was completely philosophical and said she didn’t really need it for the next few weeks. Understandable, because she is within walking distance of all her daily needs and has the wonderful beach to walk on whenever she wants. It was nearly the reason to jump ship but Australia beckoned and so we bade our farewells.