We got up early today after spending the last night in our cosy little camper bed. It was quite sad thinking that this had been our last night in a camper van. We will miss sleeping in our our cosy little bed but we won't miss having to construct the bed out of the dining table every night! Our flight wasn't until 4.55pm and we had plenty of time but we were very excited to be going home and just wanted to be at the airport. We first of all went to have our last showers in a communal amenities building. My shower went without incident as they inevitably did. Jay's shower was all good and quiet to begin with but just as she was thinking she had got away with it someone came in to the shower next door and proceeded to blow their nose at ear popping decibel levels! After showering we had our last brekky in the camper van, did the dishes, tidied up and packed the last few things away. We then unplugged our power cable for the very last time, emptied our waste water at the dump point for the last time and then at about 8.30 we were off. As it was Christmas Eve the roads were fairly quiet as we made our way across Christchurch to the camper van depot near the airport. The camper van was easily and swiftly handed back to the people at Mighty Campers who were very nice and friendly. All sorted they then gave us a ride to the airport which was just a couple of minutes away. It was now about half ten and we had a few hours to kill until we could check in. We grabbed a coffee and then read and listened to music. We also opened our advent calendar and found a big yellow star under door number 24. It was Christmas Eve but it didn't feel very christmassy here. What with the hot weather, the light evenings and the lack of festive lights and decorations New Zealand has not exuded the excitement of christmas to us. We were however exuding the excitement of going home for Christmas Day. With the massive thirteen hour time difference between New Zealand and the UK we are able to leave Christchurch at just before 5pm Christmas Eve and still be back in Manchester on christmas morning after around thirty hours in transit. Just before 2pm we checked in, went through the ordeal that is airport security and then relaxed in the departure lounge until our flight was called. Our flight with Emirates is in four stages. The first stage was to Sydney and at just after 5pm we were in the air and away from New Zealand. Three and a half hours later we were back in Australia when we landed at Sydney Airport. We had to get off the plane here and go through the ordeal of more security checks. We then sat in the departure lounge until our flight was called and we reboarded the plane about an hour later. We were soon up and away again and steadily heading north towards our next touch down in Bangkok. Manchester and our Christmas dinners were getting closer.