We landed in Auckland early morning at about 8am. For the third time, we checked in Base hostel as we knew it as a second home by now.
Mark was flying the following day and we would be flying to Australia the day after that, so this was our last full day in New Zealand.
One of Stephs friends from home Dan moved over to New Zealand a while back, and promised he would take us on a day trip out so that was how we would spend our day. Mark decided he wanted to do some last minute admin before he had to fly the next day, so it was just us and Dan.
He came and picked us up from our hostel, and drove us to the little village Orewa where he was living and working in a craft beer bar with his brother.
On the way, we stopped off at some parks that had small walks and waterfalls. The plan was to go to a place called Paihia that we'd heard good reviews about, but as it was a beach, it wasn't the right weather for that. Despite this, Dan showed us all the nice spots, and then finally took us to the bar where he worked, Coast.
The bar had lovely interior and sea views, and as a craft beer connoisseur, he gave us a try of all the beers they had on a giant paddle.
After a good and informative beer tasting, we sat down to a really delicious cold food platter with prawns, houmous and fresh bread.
After a good and informative beer tasting, we sat down to a really delicious cold food platter with prawns, houmous and fresh bread.
After that we headed over to the beach to see it up close, before he took us back into the city for a drink in the harbour.
It was really lovely to see Dan again, and the New Zealand lifestyle really suited him. We talked for ages until he finally took us back to the hostel to find a hungry Mark. Dan suggested we go and get a sals pizza from a place down the road from the hostel as they were huge!
That night we attempted to watch a film but found we were too tired from the long trip on Kiwi.
The next day was a very sad one, as we had to wave mark off onto the bus to take him to the airport. As we'd booked our New Zealand trip with Mark back in England, we knew we'd be seeing him again. However this time it was an indefinite affair. Admittedly, there was a lot of crying at the bus stop, and we waved off Mark to take the long flight back to England.
We really were both sad, but thankfully Toms friend Rebecca who had also moved to NZ from England offered us a place to stay for our final night in New Zealand. We met her from work and she took us back to her place in North Auckland city where she lives with her boyfriend Brad.
We got settled in to their cosy flat, and all was well until we heard a shriek from her bedroom.
Brad had seen a small mouse run across the room, and had not done a very good job of keeping Rebecca from noticing! The evening went from a calm night in to a panic! Brad was off to rugby practice like a true kiwi, so that left Rebecca to entertain us while she was aware of a mouse in the flat. Needless to say she was terrified of mice, and thankfully we had already bought a bottle of thank you wine for them which we intended to leave the next day. It was clearly in need now though so we opened it up and tried to talk her through cooking the stir fry while she nervously looked around her feet every 5 seconds. The food was lovely though, and despite the uninvited dinner guest, it was a really relaxed way to spend the end of our trip.
Brad came back from rugby with 5 different mouse traps so Rebecca could at least sleep that night.
The following day we were all up early. There was no sign of the mouse now so we got to say our thank you a and goodbyes peacefully. They headed out to work and we got the bus to Auckland airport.
Our time in beautiful New Zealand was over, and we were going from having every single day planned, to being left in Australia with a small amount of money, and absolutely no plan whatsoever!
Next stop Brisbane!
