Last Day in NZ!
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2008
1
7
13
Trip End
Jun 28, 2008
Sydney,
New South Wales,
Australia
Sunday, June 15, 2008
We all had breakfast around 8 and then Amy and I headed out for our last ride. We went on a different route past the lunch paddock. This time, it was us, Jackie, and 2 other girls (both better riders than we were). We did a lot more trotting and Amy tried some jumps. The first one was basically a log that she trotted over and the second was about 4 inches from the ground. She did really well!
We rode for about 2 hours and then came back and were relieved from our end cleaning duties because we had to go pack up. We left about a half an hour later, Chris drove us back to Christchurch in his van. Daniel came with us, so the whole time Mom, Amy and Riss were playing with him
.
. I slept.Once at the airport, we checked everything and then hung out. We got some lunch and Mom and Rissa bought really disgusting desserts. Everything tastes differently in NZ - ketchup, bacon, chocolate, caramel. I called Adam from the airport payphones (they take credit cards) and it was great to talk to him, though I'm pretty sure it cost about $20 and we talked for 5 or 6 minutes.
The flight was 3 hours long and wasn't too bad. Once we landed, we had to go through Customs and being good law-abiding citizens, we had to declare that we had tiki masks and BBQ sauce, as well as the fact that we had been on a farm. It only added about 10 minutes to our wait; they were very nice and efficient. Once we got out of there, it was onto Vodafone to get AUS sim cards and then to AVIS. Here, we have a van, like a Toyota minivan. It was raining yet again and Amy drove us to our hotel yet again. It was about an hour drive because we made a lot of mistakes. There was also a toll - lucky we had $5. However, even if we hadn't, they have a lane you can drive through without paying and as long as you call the toll owner within 48 hours or pay online, you don't get penalized.
Our hotel is a residence hotel and our room has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a laundry room, a kitchen, and a living room/dining room combo. It's right across the street from a mall, a Target, a theatre, and lots of yummy restaurants.
That evening, we started doing laundry the second we got in and once it was going, we went to the grocery store to stock up our fridge and to buy some more detergent. When we got back, Amy made us all a great dinner of lasagna (she warmed it), salad (made by her complete with bagel croutons), asparagus and roasted potatoes.
After dinner, we all fell exhausted, into our beds with the knowledge that we would be waking up at 5am to get Tricia from the airport the next day.
