Thursday 12/2/15 Timaru to Christchurch Airport and home.

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Thursday 12/2/15 Timaru to Christchurch Airport and home. Breakfast looking out over the garden as the hills appeared out of the early morning mist and then driving along the longest straightest road to the airport at Christchurch a fitting last day to our holiday. Dropped the car off with 5 mins to spare, I guess they may not be that strict about the exact timing but it was good to get it done. Free shuttle to the airport and the homeward journey really feels like it's started now. Air New Zealand, like quite a lot of the rest of the country, are cashing in on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit but mostly quite tastefully or amusingly. The safety film on the flight was a video done by the hobbit cast and some of their planes have been painted up with scenes or characters. Had some great views on the flight up to Auckland, flew over Golden Bay, we had stayed in Pohara but from the plane we could see the bay and the spit. The top of the volcano on the south west of North Island was peeping out above the clouds and looked really eerie. We had a couple of hours in Auckland airport and bought a couple of souvenirs and then a couple of neck cushions, just to use up the last of our cash. No views for the rest of the flights as we are on inner aisle seats but as a large part of the flight is either at night or over water it's not a problem. I like the aisle seats better anyway. Ian has kept his watch on NZ time and I'm moving mine at each stop so we know when to board again but still losing track of whether it's day or night and which day it actually is. Anyway the flights proceed we head homeward and manage to get some sleep, eat a number of meals in some sort of order which with the changing time zones sometimes feels strange. The service was pretty poor I'd say and the gluten free option was a bad choice to make. I'd have been able to eat enough of the normal meals and at least I wouldn't end up with salmon for so many consecutive meals. We watched lots of films and tv. I got through the first seasons of Grey's Anatomy and Cheers!Bit of excitement, or nerve wracking perhaps, as we came into land and were watching on the screens from the on board cameras, it looked as though we were not quite lined up with the runway and just before we touched down we took off again. The plane went up did a circle and landed straight on the second approach. Never had to do that before. So train and taxi home and Tesco delivery and bed. Need to sort out the photos and start dreaming and planning for the next trip (other than Dumfries in a couple of weeks).

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