Week 23- New Zealand (Auckland) Day 1
Today we were leaving Australia for New Zealand :-( We are both really sad about leaving Oz and wanted more time here! We have had the best 7 weeks and the past 3 weeks with Brad and Wendy with us have been incredible.

We got up reasonably early ready to pack our rucksacks, this took a while... Trying to squeeze it all back in (I have sent loads back with Brad too). We had some breakfast then had to head back to car rental. The lady from the car place then dropped us to the airport! We checked in then said our goodbyes, there were no tears this time! We will be home in 4 weeks so I think we can just about cope although we will miss them ;-)

Back to just being the two of us we headed off to the departure lounge, we had a look round the shops, got some food then it was time to take off. It all went really quick. The plane was smooth and the food was actually half decent for once! When we landed in NZ we didn't think they were going to let us in as we had herbs, salt, pepper etc and also our walking boots! We had to go through the 'declared' area and they allowed us to keep the food as it was dried and in packets. We had to unpack our rucksacks to find our boots and they were washed. Gemma's had to be taken away and disinfected!! So after all that drama we finally left the airport.

We got the shuttle to our hostel, checked in and headed out to grab some dinner as it was about 10pm. It was cold, wet and windy :-( just as we had got used to the sunshine in Cairns. We had Mexican from a little restaurant below the hostel. The portions were massive! We then went back upstairs and hit the sack. We were so exhausted from our past 3 weeks and couldn't wait to have a lay in without an alarm!!