New Zealand: Departure

Cleaning the camper

Cris at the back of the camper van Joel at the front of the camper van

Our last day in New Zealand started with our first serious housekeeping session in the camper. As the day before we'd already prepared our bags we were able to get started straight away with the dusting, polishing and brushing in order to leave the camper as we'd found it.

At the dump station

Finally for the first time we emptyed the dump tank at the dumpstation. This was our first time doing this and spoke to how miserly we had been we our water usage!

We were surprised with how quickly we were able to finish our housekeeping and went to a nearby shopping mall earlier than we'd expected. We had already decided that we would spend any extra time in the warmth of the shopping mall rather than tramping around the city. Especially as it would be quicker to get to the airport, and we didn't want the stress of trying to get out of the city centre with a plane to catch.

We did some shopping while we were there and posted our postcards before going for our last coffee and cafe in New Zealand.

The coffee shop was comfortable and the coffee and cafe excellent but what really resonated with us was a sign that they had with two shoes glued on and a simple message.

Enjoy the journey

Airport

We left the mall with time to spare and went to top-up our tank even though it was still showing full. This entailed some roundabout routes as the petrol station was on the wrong side or a rather busy road but we soon managed it and set course for the airport.

Leaving the camper

First we stopped in Maui and said goodbye to our camper van, the return process seemed much more haphazard than the pick-up process, an impression that was reinforced when they told us that we were supposed to have dropped the camper back in Wellington!

We soon cleared that error up (due to them entering incorrectly our booking reference) and handed back the keys and documentation.

Once in the airport itself we were sent from the international desk to the domestic desk (due to the fact that our first flight was domestic to Wellington) and then told that our flight to Wellington had been cancelled. but we had the choice of two flights to Wellington, both of which would get us there on time for our fight via Los Angles to London. One of the flights was earlier than our original and we opted for that one.

Leaving New Zealand

We were soon boarding and had to say our goodbyes to New Zealand, it had been a fantastic holiday and we hope to return some day.

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