The day after our night out with Kiwi John we headed to Napier Airport for a domestic flight to Christchurch. The airport is just on the outskirts of Napier, a short taxi ride away. It's a small airport but very modern. There's a tiny little check in area and a small cafe area and a departure gate........That's it!!!!!

What a refreshing change not to have to go through rigourous security. We checked our cases through to Christchurch as we were changing planes in Wellington. We got a brew and sat in some seats near the window overlooking the small runway. A tiny little passenger plane landed and 40 or so passengers got off the plane by means of a little step ladder. They then walked into the terminal, through the departure door...

lettie

Our second day in Napier saw us saying goodbye to the car. We didn't need it any more so we took it back to the hire place in Napier and set off on foot for Mclean Park. England were attempting to play some cricket against NZ so we duly turned up to watch. It's a lovely sports ground with plenty of grassy areas to mong out on in the sunshine. It was an exciting game which ended in a draw but also a social occasion. You can't help getting talking to people at these kind of games and we were soon chatting to a couple from the UK who were on a world backpacking tour. My drink to toilet ratio ended up being synchronised with a lady from Waikato, so we had a little chat at each loo visit. Everybody is really friendly here and that reassured me because...

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We set off from P's house and drove to Thames to see K, my old school friend. We were staying the night there before driving on to Napier.

K has a busy life with her involvement in the family business and her children. It was really good of her to make time for us and make us so welcome. Thames is a small town but has lots of amenities and is the main town on the Coromandel penninsula. I have posted pics of Thames in my first NZ holiday thread so I didn't really take any pics here...

K was taking her children to football that evening, so me and Sparks just went for a walk. I needed to keep moving, my ankles had blown up like balloons on the long haul flight and my toes were like little sausages. We had a lovely...

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Well, there we were, newly arrived in Auckland and off to bed fully expecting to be jet lagged for a couple of days. We didn't sleep the first night at my friend P's house - we lapsed into unconsciousness. I have very little recollection of going to bed after the horrendous journey but, the next thing I knew..... It was 6.30 in the morning and we had slept all night without waking up at an unearthly hour.

I got up to make a brew and played with the dog for a few minutes. Our friends were up shortly after us and got their son off to school. They have really settled in here and live in a lovely place. Later that morning we loaded the dog into the car and went to the beach 10 minutes away.

Well, the dog had a brilliant...

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Now, before I get to all of the good bits. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the name of our airline. Most of you can probably guess who it was and lots of people have been shoddily treated by them before.

It was amazing to find that almost everybody we spoke to on holiday has had some sort of bad experience with our airline. The amount of people who have said that they will never use them again is staggering. The night at the hotel in London saw us chatting to people who were going all over the world. A man I spoke to was connecting to a Carribean cruise in the USA, he missed it... The airline just couldn't get him there on time. What an absolute bummer, I would have been seething.

We met up with...

lettie