Day 42 — TAURANGA, New Zealand
Transfer day. Pack up the bags and potter around getting things organised to head into Heathrow. The Mag is having all sorts of problems fitting her clothes into her bag. On Wednesday she sent 3 large boxes to NZ by surface mail. She has only kept the stuff she will need when she arrives in NZ the rest was packed off. It has been a hard week for her with having to say goodbyes to people who have been her friends and family for the last 5 years. In the end we had to grab another postal box and cram her extra stuff into it and post it off. It is stuff she will need when she gets to NZ straight away, the other 3 boxes won't arrive until Xmas. Kirsty, Paul and Little Man came around for lunch and to say goodbye to the Mag. Not surprisingly it was all a bit much. Kirsty is very much like a sister to Mag and they were both very upset. They were off to have a 20 week scan on their baby. Much crying and hugs before they could leave. After much weighing and swappings things around we were ready to go. Another hugely emotional moment as Mag had to say goodbye to Ang. This was always going to be hard as Ang cried everytime Mag said goodbye to anyone. I had just run upstairs to grab my phone as I wanted to get a photo with Ang and John, too late Ang had already started crying! They have decided to all try and come over for next Xmas which will be excellent if it falls into place. John and Josh drove us up to London, and we had a nice quick trip all the on the M4, the first real road I have seen since we got here. Always a good idea to be heading into London on a Friday and not out of London. Traffic heading out was back to back all the way to Bristol almost. Had a bite to eat with John and Josh at the airport. Mag had got us exit seats for the long leg thru to Kuala Lumpur. Now for the moment I was dreading, Mag saying goodbye to Josh. A whole year apart to look forward to so both are going to be a bit upset. Sure enough they both had a blub. Anyway we bolted thru immigration and went and sat down for a red wine and the chocolates we bought in Bordeaux. Mag only took a little while to calm down, which impressed me. Used up most of my sterling on the new Jack Reacher Novel. Onto the plane and great seats, a nice stiff G&T and I slept for seven of the 12 hour flight, Brilliant. We had four hours to kill in KL so we started of having a shower and then a coffee at Starbucks to use the WiFi so I could check the score in the NPC final, yay the Red and Blacks did it for the 5th year in a row. Made Mag walk around a bit so we looked in every shop then decided to have a beer. Big mistake in a muslim country. I got a pint and Mag a half pint of Carlsberg using the last of our British pounds, in the end it worked out at $30.00NZ bloody hell. Had to catch a train to another terminal so we headed off there and spent my last few Euros on some chocolate. Perfect budgeting. Thiis flight is not a Jumbo its the 777-200. Bit more leg room but there are young children all over the place and we are surrounded, neat. Well the flight has been the worst I have had. The couple behind us had a screaming child who didn't stop for the first 4 hours. Mainly because the parents were only interested in playing on the on board game console and talking as loud as they could. They didn't do a thing to quieten the child, no games or taking her for a walk, complete *****. A lady with a child the same age beside us had all sorts of games and movies for her wee one when she was awake. Arrrrghhh. Then after breakfast to cap it of I tipped a nice hot cup of coffee on my nice cream pants, plonker. A long hard flight and was so happy to finally land at Auckland. But wait there's more. The wait for NZ passport holders at immigration was nil, for us others, an hour, I managed to be only 8 from last to be processed. Mag had to wait for me, she went thru and got our bags. Finally got thru then had to wait another 20 mins at customs, Mag went straight thru!!! The drive was home was sweet no problems and was pleased to finally get thru the door. On the way home we found out that Sandy was going to be out till 21:00, nooooo. As Mag was surprising her mum we had to kill about 5 hours till she was home. Both of us were walking around like zombies. Eventually Sandy got home and was delighted to see The Mag home a week early. I managed to keep my eyes open till I made it home but then got a burst of energy so climbed into bed till midnight. So tour over. I had an absoluutely awesome time. The tour met everyone of my expectations and I got to see everything I wanted to see. I have definitely got the travel bug now. The weather was great in Europe and rubbish in England and Ireland. The people were great in England and Ireland but a bit odd in Europe. The Guinness was awesome in Ireland as my waistline now shows. I got to meet a lot of really nice people and a couple of real beautiful people. This is my last posting as it is back to normal now. What a great 6 weeks. The Mag was great to tour with and hopeully in the future I will get to do something like it again with Lexi or better still both my girls together.