Our flight home was via Singapore, where we had a12 hour layover arriving there around 6am local time. Our top priority was returning the defunct camera back to where we bought it and also April wanted to try and find the book she was after. No luck with the book but the camera was successfully returned - it now gets sent to Olympus for assessment to determine if it's a repair or a replacement.
We headed out of the airport to see a little bit of Singapore.
Gardens of the Bay was our planned destination, which according to the info we'd read opened at 5am. By now it was 8am and we headed towards the taxi stands to work out how to organise a shuttle for the 5 of us (we had no intention of attempting public transport after limited sleep and an 11 hour flight - we'd learned that lesson in Milan!). The taxi rank was almost deserted - a single taxi only, no shuttles. While we were reading the info on how to arrange a shuttle we were waved over and they told us they were happy to squeeze us all in to the taxi - so we did and headed off.

On the way there, we read the brochure we'd picked up at the airport and found that the outside gardens do open at 5am, however the garden domes and kids splash park (the bits we actually wanted to see) open a bit later - so we had some time to kill once we got there. We walked around the outside gardens and spotted a giant lizard, an otter and some extra large snails, then a quick snack of fruit salad, melon, dragon fruit and pork buns filled in the remaining time and we headed into the domes which were much cooler inside. One dome was focused on flowering plants the other more a rain forest environment with orchids and ferns. Both had stunning plants and flowers as well as some amazing wood sculptures - definitely worth coming to see. Sarah and Scott also had a play in between at the splash park and enjoyed the cooling water as it was quite warm. By 1pm we had used up all our energy and were happy to head back to the airport. We found the taxi rank, but none of the taxi's would take us - it turns out that our driver this morning had broken the rules by taking all 5 of us!

As we contemplated this information Kate spotted a shuttle dropping off a group of 5 further up the road. It drove off but Kate was fairly certain that it was just going round a circuit that came out further down the road so she ran off down the road to try and try to flag it down. 5 minutes passed and she hadn't returned - Darryl joked that she'd probably got lost, but actually she had managed to flag it down (just!) but because of the one way street system it had to go around another block to get back which took a bit longer than expected. Eventually she returned in the taxi van with room for everyone and we headed back to the airport.

Singapore airport is a great place to relax with comfortable chairs and couches and tv's and even free massage chairs. We checked out the butterfly room - (this time it was daytime and they were awake) and then chilled out and dozed and relaxed until it was time for our flight.
9 hours later we arrived in Auckland where, much to April's delight she found the book she was after.
Our flight down to Wellington was a little late departing, but we made it to the train station with enough time to have Hot Chocolate/Tea/Coffee and meat pies at the Railway Station Cafe before catching the train back to Masterton. Hard to believe that you can't buy pies in Europe- it was one of the things we were looking forward to the most on our return, and they didn't disappoint!

Kate fell asleep on the train ride home, before we'd even left the station. Thanks to Bob & Niecie who met us in Masterton with a home cooked meal all ready for us to heat and eat. It was great to finally be home and see Kimba again, who was pleased to see us - but not overwhelmingly so. Obviously she'd had lots of fun with her new best dog friend Molly, and had more than enough attention from Mary while we were away! A big thanks to everyone who helped us out in many various ways - including advice. It was an amazing trip and a wonderful experience.