So Easter Monday was something of a washout - lots of things very closed!! Shifted myself out of bed mid morning to go to Polkolbin Village, which turned out to be a very small parade of shops, where even the restaurant was closed!! It did however have a lovely gift shop and a general store, which was doing a roaring trade in snacks and sandwiches, as lots of hungry tourists were wandering around looking for food and some inspiration for the day. Got myself a very nice ham sandwich and another wonderful ice cream from the Smelly Cheese Shop and then decided it was too nice to wander around some huge garden looking at wilted roses, so went back to the hotel and sat on the sundeck for a couple of hours and read my book!

Caught up on my blog early evening and then had an early night, as I was due to be up at the stupidest o'clock yet, in order to catch my flight to Auckland. So, I set the alarm and duly got up at 4am - yes, you read that correctly, 4am - to drive back to Sydney, drop the car and catch my flight. Discovered as I arrived at Sydney airport that One Direction were arriving from the UK. Didn't see One Direction (not particularly sad about that) but did see, and hear, hordes of screaming and crying teenagers, who were disrupting the airport!! So headed over to Air New Zealand to check in & the guy on the check in kept trying to shove me back over to Economy check in, until I forcefully pointed out I was flying business.

Grabbed breakfast in the Business lounge and then headed down to the gate, only to find out we were being delayed by about an hour! Still can't complain, that is only the second delay I've had in all my travels so far.

Flight was uneventful, but late. Picked up my hire car and got a bit of a shock when I got out to the car park. Normally I don't bother too much with the inspection - just a cursory glance over it - but a guy ambled up and said shall we do the inspection and then I really looked at the car. OMG, I was so glad we did the inspection. It turns out the people who had it before me took it off road and scratched and dented the thing to bits - it was covered in scratches and scuffs and gouges, so I was very thorough, as there is no way I'm paying for any of those!! So that took some time, then when I got in I realised it was a 4WD and I haven't driven one in so long I was a little lost & confused about the transmission/gear changes. Finally figured it out, by which time it was well gone 4pm, then it took ages to programme my satnav, as it kept telling me I was on a 10 hour drive - which I thought was ridiculous. Then realised I had misspelt the name of the town I was headed to - I was using Pahia instead of Paihia, so it was trying to send me to the South Island instead of up north. Getting on for 5pm by the time I finally got out of the airport, with a 3hour drive, at least in front of me.

It was very long 3 hours on some very tortuous roads, but I finally arrived at what I thought was my hotel just after 8pm, only to find reception just closing and no apparent record of my booking. Actually, if I'd seen it in the light, I wouldn't have argued and would have tried the other place in my hotel list. Anyway, they did have a room, just not the one I'd booked, but by this time I was so tired I could have just wept, so I took the room, with the promise of a bottle of wine on the house and movement to my booked room the next day. It wasn't the nicest room in the world, but quite frankly, I dumped my bags, pulled out my pj's and hit the sack!!