After saying an emotional fair well to the flat, never been so happy, we set off from Wellington in our hire car amidst bad weather warnings for the central north island.This was both good and bad.Bad, we needed to drive to Auckland and many of the roads were being closed.Good, we had a day skiing at Mt Ruapehu and the Turoa Terrain Park.

We should not have worried about the weather as we got a fantastic, sunny day on the mountain with fresh snow from the night before.We got our shuttle to the slopes, collected our hire skis and headed out to the baby slope.After my last very unsuccessful lesson at Xscape Glasgow we were both a little worried about me checking in for a stage 2 lesson and not stage 1.Fear not the baby slope was conquered without too many bumps and after a few tips from our uninterested instructor we got on the chair lift, hit the big slopes and the deck a few times before skiing all the way back to the foot of the mountain.A great day capped off with a pizza and a few beers.

From there we had one night in Taupo and then left early for Auckland.Not feeling excellent we did not venture beyond the Sky tower and a run round the harbour before heading for the airport and Australia.Good by New Zealand.