*Written several months late…
For our last morning, I followed my recent routine of heading for deck 5, but made a huge mistake by opting for the Nutella doughnut. It didn’t live up to expectations at all.
Along with most of the passengers, we headed out on deck for the Auckland sail in. It is always an impressive one and we waved to friends who might well have seen us as we came in past the bays. Although it was fine, there was a bit of a chill in the air. We docked spot on time at 10;03am (We’ll ignore the 3 minutes late as we had to slow to avoid a container ship that was exiting). The first passengers were off at 10:18 but we had to wait until luggage had been off loaded of course. Our scheduled time was 11:30am but we escaped at 11:20. Customs was a breeze as we had nothing to declare but unlike the airport, there is no Duty Free shop on arrival, not that we needed to buy anything.
However, we were then waiting patiently at Queen’s Wharf for Julie to pick us up. She was at Princes Wharf…
Anyway, straight home and the car started OK. Gas water heating, water and all electricity switched back on, then straight down to the Garden Centre on Porana Rd, where Mal & Megan had picked up Garry and Jo and Mal and Marie arrived by taxi! We nattered until about 1:45 (after an excellent coffee, poached eggs, bacon, tomatoes and toast, something I’d been looking forward to) then Paula had to rush off for a dance lesson.
So that was it. Back home and dinner was cheese on toast – and we enjoyed every single mouthful!
In 4 days’ time, I am flying out again to the UK for a feast of motoring related stuff, so this travel/cruise blog effectively ends, but later, I’ll post a summary of the cruise and the ship, by which time, I will probably have filtered out the dross and the memories will be either highlights or lowlights.
