Yesterday afternoon, I had to help Mairead sort her flight out; she had to make an amendment to it and was having problems with Qantas, so she put me on the phone to sort it. Typical! The guy on the phone could see where I was coming from and ended up giving her a refund for their mistake! Result - see my powerful persuasion can work! To say thank you, Mairead took me to see a film at the cinema which was nice of her. We got back to the hostel at 9pm, had a couple of drinks and was in bed by 11pm.

I didnt wake up until 10am this morning - must have needed the sleep! I had a shower, got ready and met JB in the square by the giant chess board. We walked over to the kiwi house and aquarium - I saw my first kiwi today! They are surprisingly bigger than I expected, bigger than a football! We walked round to Macdonalds and had some lunch before walking over the River Avon to the Botanic Gardens, where we spent about three hours just walking around and laughing at the names of some of the roses they had there. We took a walk by the river and got an icecream and sat talking for a couple of hours. We had a lovely day, its a shame it had to end. It was great to just walk around and talk instead of having crazy days out with no time to think.

Im flying to Melbourne tomorrow with Mairead. Shes flying there for a few days to visit her Australian boyfriend before flying to Asia for two months. She lives in Ireland and weve agreed for me to visit her and the country when I get home, whenever that may be. We have to be up at 3am tomorrow, to catch the 4am shuttle to the airport for our 6am flight. We land in Melbourne at 8am (three hours behind New Zealand) - Nino and Grace are picking me up from the airport once I have landed to take me back to their house. Im really looking forward to staying in a house with my own bedroom and a bath! Yippee!

My time in New Zealand has been my best, by far. It has probably been the best two weeks of my life and I cant wait to visit here again!