Day 10 - Auckland to Brisbane

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Geo: -36.8474, 174.766

Had a good sleep in this morning and it is a bright and sunny day without being to hot. We lost a day on our flight over the international date line yesterday and it's now one day closer to Christmas.

We head down for a light breakfast in the Hotel cafe then pack our bags and leave them at reception as we have an hour to kill before our chauffeur arrives.

Its a nice morning so we decide to walk down the Main Street of the city and perhaps do some shopping and surprisingly there are no crowds as we stroll around. Unfortunately the time went quickly so we headed back to our hotel and sure enough our shiny silver Audi A8 is waiting for us. We have a nice ride to the airport but take the freeway this time.

We check in without a fuss and decide to buy our duty free in Auckland instead of Brisbane as the choice is much larger and seems to be a little cheaper. Deb asks me to find myself a Christmas present but I see nothing I really want.

We have something to eat and a nice New Zealand white wine before boarding as we are now pre warned about the lack of food and service on the Air New Zealand flight.

The plane left on time and we have another very ordinary flight home (as expected) and touch down about 4.30pm. It's a hot and humid afternoon in Brisbane much like Tahiti but at least everybody is talking in English instead of French. And why is it that in Brisbane there always seems to be a skeleton staff on duty at customs causing major delays? At least we were not searched.

We finally caught a taxi and headed towards the Gap and on arriving we are pleased to see everything is in one piece and we have no storm damage. First port of call is the bar fridge as we grab a cold beer and both say at the same time, "It's nice to be home".

Hint - don't bother filling out your lengthy infectious diseases card introduced because of the Ebola scare because they don't even check it.

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