We dragged our tired feet to the Airport Express bus stop, jumped on the bus and got off at Kowloon Station. We collected our hand luggage, packed away our shopping and jumped on the train to the airport. The flight was on time and before we knew it, we were back in Blighty.

That's the thing about going to New Zealand, I hate coming back home. Somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago "What's so great about NZ?"

"It just is......" I replied.

New Zealand is like a parallel universe. Roughly the same size as the UK but only about 4.5 million people as opposed to our 60 million +. The weather is basically the same too, they can have good summers or bad summers, plenty of rain, the first...

We woke up the next morning in Hong Kong, Sparks was feeling much better. We were flying back home that night so we went for a quick breakfast, packed our stuff and decided to check everything in at the Kowloon Station check in. This is the brilliant thing about Hong Kong. With one of the densest populations on Earth and the need to get people from A to B quickly, the transport system is top notch.

We left our hotel at about 10am, jumped on the Airport Express shuttle bus to Kowloon Station and checked our suitcases in for our flight, it's a brilliant system, we didn't see our cases again until we arrived back in Manchester. We called at the customer service dept and left our hand luggage with them, we would collect it later....

We were up at the crack of dawn for our taxi to the airport. Our hotel had a deal going with a local taxi firm which made it cheaper than going on the airport bus. It must have been about 5.45am when we were picked up. I was feeling tired and after the over indulgence of the previous day, my head felt like it had been run over by a bus.

Our taxi was stopped on the motorway slip road by the police who were doing random breathalyser checks. It was the third time that our taxi driver had been tested that night. He told the police officer that he would need a beer after all of that testing. She laughed and waved us on our way.

We soon arrived at the airport and checked in. Depression finally hit me when we got into the...

The following morning, we packed up our stuff and headed to the bus station. We had Intercity tickets to Auckland that morning. I texted my friend 'P' to let her know we were on our way back. She was meeting us for a late lunch as it was our last day in New Zealand

We caught the coach from Hamilton bus station and sat behind the driver. He was a lovely bloke, Maori descent, very talkative and direct. Pulling out of Hamilton station, we spotted an extremely overweight young lass eating what appeared to be a foot long baguette with a gooey, greasy looking filling.
"She's had way too many of them", quipped our driver. He said what we were thinking and we immediately hit it off..

The journey to Auckland...

We dumped our bags at the chintz graveyard and headed into Hamilton centre in search of food. Hamilton is a nice city but, landlocked. It is the only city in New Zealand which isn't on the coast. However, it is situated on the Waikato River which has a lovely footpath on which to walk and appreciate the peace and quiet in the middle of the city.

We walked through streets filled with bars and restaurants and had a mosey round the shopping area. We finally decided to get a drink in one of the bars. The bar was busy, cricket fans had descended on Hamilton and everywhere was buzzing. The bar had a decent looking menu so we decided to order food. Looking round the busy bar for somewhere to sit, we saw some familiar faces....
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