Good evening or morning readers,

I hail to you from a pit of black depression. Well ok it's perhaps not that bad but I am not happy. My passport arrived today with only an hour to spare before I had to be at the airport, as it was so late I assumed that it wasn't going to arrive in time and was preparing to stay in Queenstown until I could arrange a flight home. The result of it actually arriving in time is that my leaving came as a surprise to everyone and I didn't get much chance to say goodbye to the people who have become like my southern hemisphere family. I won't lie to you there were tears and I'm sat here now in a hostel in Sydney (again) thinking about how jealous I am that they will all be preparing for a night out or sitting in the dorm watching low quality tv without me and that fantastic group will probably never be together in such a place again.

I know that this is hardly a cheerful entry considering I'll be home soon, but I think that at this point leaving Queenstown was harder than leaving home. In the end I know home will always be there with the same people in the same places, but even though Queenstown won't cease to exist without me there life will never be as it has been for the past months and the people I've met will scatter across the world once more.

On a marginally more positive note I hope to be able to sort out a flight home tomorrow and hopefully won't be spending long in this city. I would also like to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone for the total lack of souvenirs, it might have to wait until my next trip!

lots of love

Katie

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