Today was our last day in New Zealand after a fantastic 5 weeks travelling around this wonderful country.

Highlights include watching Coldplay in Auckland when we first arrived, meeting up with Brent and Anne in Christchurch from our tour in Borneo, along with Lana from our SEA tour and going to the Eng v NZ 1st test with them both.

We then capped off the reunions with a couple of days in Dunedin with Michelle & Jenny from our tour in Japan.

Added to this we got to see an array of beautiful cities and countryside, on both islands, notable places being Queenstown, Wanaka, Christchurch, Lake Taupo, The Bay of Islands, Abel Tasman Nat Park, Hanmer Springs, Kaka Point, Milford Sound, Arrowtown, Hokitika, Cardrona and Mount Pleasant.

We also got time to relax and enjoy the side hustle of wine tasting in Martinborough & Marlborough.

We were also incredibly fortunate to meet up with Andy’s parents in Blenheim for a couple of days and to celebrate James’ 82nd birthday.

Special times we won’t ever forget.

So this morning Andy signed off with his final 10km run along the straight road into the city and back.

We then had a leisurely morning at the hotel before checking into our flight to Sydney early afternoon.

So it’s goodbye to New Zealand and off we popped on our 3hr flight to Sydney.

We had clear views of the mountains when we first took off.

As the flight progressed the Qantas stewards came around with our inflight meal and a Xmas chocolate treat.

Before we knew it, we were flying over a cloudy Sydney and the Parramatta River and Sydney Olympic Park and on to Blacktown before circling back over Newtown and Mascot and landing at SYD.

Once on the ground, we then had a short wait for Amelia’s flight to arrive from KL.

Whilst we waited we were surprised by Caroline, Eva and Charlie, who had arrived to welcome Amelia and us back to Australia for Xmas 2024 and all the celebrations they have planned.

Amelia appeared at 9.45pm and the family reunion was complete. After lots of hugs and laughter we then headed to Manly, with a detour around the Western Suburbs courtesy of Caroline’s navigation skills.

Once in Manly we returned to the same apartment we stayed in for Xmas 2023, making it feel like a proper home return. After unpacking and catching up with Amelia we headed to bed around 1am.

Tomorrow is looking like a wet & windy affair, so we plan to head to the mall for some last minute Xmas shopping.