Day 17 – Wednesday 15 April

We woke to find Akaroa greeting us with another cold, wet & windy day. Today is our last day in New Zealand so we packed our bags for the last time, made sure we had everything from the car packed then it was off to breakfast. L’Escargot Rouge was a short 50 metre drive from our motel, we were going to walk down & back but it was bucketing down with rain. Our drive out of Akaroa was slow, the wind was funnelling down the harbour & absolutely blasting across the road with rain & hail rocking the car. The drive up the crater wall was thankfully sheltered & as a bonus we were on the inside uphill lane closest to the mountain, not the very scary drop-off (unfenced) on the downhill lane. I only missed taking one turn on the way to the airport & thankfully realised my mistake early before the u-turn & back on the correct road.

The weather cleared as we got to the airport so we were in sunshine on the walk to the terminal thankfully. The rental car drop-off was very easy & I was amazed that we drove 3,277km in New Zealand on the south island in our 2 1/2weeks. I didn’t think there was that much road there. Thankfully the little Toyota Corolla we drove had great fuel consumption figures.

We had a while to wait for check-in of our flight so we found a comfy seat, had a bit of a read, a little bit of retail therapy for Tereza & a bite of lunch, some delicious bratwurst sausages in a bun. We flew Emirates Airlines for the first time ever & found them to be very good. The food they served on the flight was even very tasty. The flight was only a shade over 3 hours so before we knew it we were in Sydney & waiting for the bus to take us back to Canberra. We slept most of the way to Canberra & James was waiting to bring us home.

We found New Zealand a very beautiful country with a stunning array of scenery & activities. We think we managed to fit a lot in during our short time on the south island, however there were so many places that we didn’t go to. The food was great, especially the boysenberry ice creams, the people we met were friendly & hospitable & the weather was nearly always, though not quite, great.

All in all another great experience together, though it is great to be home & to see the family again.