Spoiler alert: we made it safely home! And the back-to-reality hit almost immediately…..after seven loads of washing, 331 emails, and delivering teenagers to parties and appointments for the rest of the week, our holiday seems much longer ago than it really was!

We took advantage of the late checkout and enjoyed another free breakfast delivered to our rooms. By the time we had packed and loaded the bus at 10am, we felt we had seen the city of Auckland and enjoyed it. Zac had noticed Mt Eden out a window at the Skytower, so after some research we decided to head there as we left the CBD.

The main mountain in Auckland is Mount Wellington (confusing!), but it was nowhere near as impressive as Mt Victoria (which we visited the summit of in…..Wellington), and did not even appear to have a lookout. So instead we headed to Mt Eden, which was actually a crater of a volcano. It was a decent post-breakfast hike up a hill to a lookout over the city, in the middle of a suburb that reminded me of Sydney’s north shore (and is now on our list to stay at next time we travel there).

After taking in our last views of the landscape, we stopped at a park for morning tea (well, attempting to finish the last of our fruit and grocery items!), soccer and frisbee. We then returned our bus and were dropped off to the airport for our flight home. We’ve travelled 2,006km and enjoyed such a variety of experiences, good health (apart from Oli’s ear infection), and mostly accommodating weather – many wonderful memories have been made!

Auckland airport does not have a lot of choice when it comes to food, so another round of Maccas was consumed, a few last souvenirs purchased and then we were homeward bound. The flight was a great one, which did a lot to allay the fears of the anxious flyers, and it was interesting to review the flight path and see so many places we had visited.

Before term 3 and our regular routines resume, I must record everyone’s favourite things….and start planning the next Jones adventure! 😀