Woke up at 7:30 to find out that Jess had spent the night after her fall sleeping on the floor. I did final packing and then headed down to have the last breakfast of the tour: peanut butter and butter and nutella sandwich and a cup of tea. I'm really not eating healthily on this trip :) Ronnie, Norrie, and Andrea were also at breakfast and Ronnie gave Susan and me going-away presents. Susan got a paua shell pen and I got a sheep and sheepdog tic-tac-toe set. It's adorable. Ronnie is one of the nicest people I've ever met, with a wicked sense of humour once you get to know him. Norrie's a love also. I'm so glad they were on the tour with us.
When everyone finally emerged and ate we piled into the van to head for Auckland and the airport, where Susan and I would be dropped off for our flight to LA. Along the way Sarah M. Kier, and I were in the same row and ended up snuggled together under a beach towel. While we were chatting Steve turned off the main highway to go someplace special because I had been disappointed that since the itinerary changed I missed the Cadbury factory in Dunedin. We went to Candyland! It's a candy store/factory somewhere between Raglan and Auckland. The girls had fabulous time shopping for all sorts of sweets.
I got lots of candy and lollipops, and Sarah M. stocked up on the local equivalent of pixy stix. We spent the remainder of the drive trying to make out tongues go different colours. She was blue, I was orange, and Susan was pink. The store was super cheap and I walked away with lots of candy for only 10 dollars. One last group picture and we were on our way. We pulled into the airport at about 2 and said goodbye to everyone as they were heading on to Auckland to disperse from there. Lots of hugs, and I think even a tear from Susan.
We were really early for our flight, which was at 6, but with Steve at the helm early is way better than the alternative :) We paid our departure tax (New Zealand charges $25 to leave the country - kind of like the toll to leave New Jersey) and then plunked ourselves down in front of the check-in counter to wait for the Air Pacific people to show up. A really nice security guy came by to make sure all our liquids were in a ziploc bag and at 3 the counters opened. Our check-in guy was really slow but nice, he gave us exit row seats and let our bags through even though they were slightly over the weight limit. We had three hours to kill but the Auckland Airport is really nice with lots of stores, so we had fun. I was on a quest to get a free New Zealand baseball cap from the Regency Duty-Free store, since I had clipped a coupon for it when I arrived in New Zealand. The first Regency was out of stock but the second, past security, had two left. They had to go find them since evidently the promotion had been canceled and most stores were completely out of stock. So I bought some chocolate and got my hat. The flight to Nadi was only about half full, so Susan and I spread out and we got our own rows. Dinner was delicious - a fish filet stirfried with vermicelli and ginger sauce, cold rice salad, and a pavlova.
When we got to Fiji (still hot and humid) we had about an hour or so and then onto an Air New Zealand flight to LA.
If given the choice I would fly Air Pacific any day over Air New Zealand - the flight attendants are nicer, the food is better, and planes are better as well (at least on our flights). We had a pretty dinky plane (2-3-2 seats) and only a large screen up front to watch "Balls of Fury" (again) on. And the flight attendants were snippy. Oh well, I managed to sleep for about 6 or seven hours, and since we crossed the International Dateline we landed in LA 4 hours before taking off in Auckland. Susan and I made it to the hotel, collapsed for a few hours, and then headed down to the fancy restaurant (because we couldn't be bothered to expend the energy to find anywhere else) for a nice dinner. Then back to the room to spread out on luxuriously sized (double) beds and both conked out by 7:30. Tomorrow we part ways and fly home.
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