26th July
We were up pretty early as we had to check out and we were picked up by Sheilina at the airport hotel. We were driven to Albany where Sheilina and Grants new diving shop was located (as she had a meeting going on), where we then took our car to go to her house. Letting our selves in we dropped our bags in “our” room and sorted ourselves out before leaving again and dropping into into the dive shop at Silverdale to see Grant. After we drove back to Shelina and went back together to here house, chilled and started making dinner. I picked up Grant from the dive shop and went home for a chilled night.
27th
In the morning after a relaxed wakeup, Bhavni and I took Imani to the local park for a couple of hours, entertaining her on all the crazy slides and jungle gyms. She was quite brave and tried most of the different stuff there.
After we got back, Bhavni took the car and went into town to see here work friends at a restaurant for a last get to gather. Meanwhile I stayed at the house and looked after Imani – lots of reading and puzzle building ensued.
After Bhavni got back in the late afternoon we relaxed for a bit of time before going to Dunkerron Avene, to the Grants house for dinner. We took a nice bottle of red with us which got opened as a late birthday treat for Sue. Most of our neighbours were there apart from Peter from No 30 as he was already in the UK. It was a really nice night and its still amazing to hear the stories from our neighbours – who have led interesting lives and been close to lots of important people in NZ.
28th
Sheilina was off today, so we (after breakfast) headed to Piha (finally for us). We spent the morning walking first along the beach then along one of the paths through the trees where we got to see some waterfalls. On the beach Imani collected quite a few shells, which were slowly scattered about in the woods.
For lunch we found a small place and ordered a couple of chips for our selves.
The Lion was beckoning, so after some fun getting stopped by a stream only a meter across (because of out shoes), we got back in the car and went around. Imani was after some ice cream, so Bhavni and I headed to the Lion, but the next minute Sheilina was shouting behind us – Imani said she would like to climb up. It is a relatively good accent, but Imani manged it well and we got a good lookout at the top.
We got back and chilled at the house in the evening.
29th
I was awake early enough to watch the dawn, I ended up giving Imani breakfast as well. Whilst Sheilina was out working in the morning we spent the day with Imani, having fun with playdoh and creating lots of animals.
In the afternoon we spend a while packing for the next day.
30th
Again I got up in time for dawn, with Bhavni also joining to catch the view. Today we were off. Sheilina was dropping us to the airport, but as out flight was much later we decided to have a last meal in Newmarket. There was apparently a really nice Indian restraunt with lots of vegetarian choices, however we could not find it, so we had italian – pizza and pasta, cant go wrong normally.
From there we had our final trip to the airport, where we said out bye byes to Sheilina and Imani (who was being very shy as we were leaving).
We joined the queue and went to check in….. Out bags were a little overweight, and the attendant was not in a good mood so we had to go out of the line and reshift some of out stuff, (although we got past the queue) we were still slightly over on these scales even though the public scales had shown it was ok. Back to shifting again. This time we got to another attendant, so the bags got allowed into the flight – finally as we were a bit flustered at this point.
Now we had to get to security. Well stopped again for our hand luggage. Even with the approved label on the bag the attendant was not happy about the bag, as Bhavni had just put her coat in there for now. Bhavni offered to wear the coat, but the new attendant would not see reason, so Bhavni had to go down and actually got them to write on the bag it was approved. In the mean time I threw away a pair of shoes and some towels as they were not going to let me go otherwise…..
Eventually we got through and tried to relax, what a silly end to an amazing time!
On the plane, Air NZ, they apparently did not know we had ordered veg meals, so that was a bit rubbish. It was apparent it was there fault as when we landed in Vancouver and asked the Air Canada staff, our meal was sorted. Vancouver airport was quite nice and we got some Maple Syrup for people.
Soon enough we were crossing security in Heathrow. Welcome back to the UK.