On Sunday morning, Nadia decided to make a second batch of lemon slice for the bake sale. She also did a final load of washing so that we had less to do when we got home. We then all walked into Palisades Village to deliver the slice.

On the way home we stopped at the supermarket to grab some stuff for a BBQ lunch. Adrian cooked and we had lunch out on Mary's patio in the beautiful sunshine.

After lunch we packed our bags and tidied Miranda's room. We then spent a few more hours watching TV with the family and giving the kids gifts that we bought on our travels. We then said our final goodbyes and started our journey home.

We arrived at the rental car lot with plenty of time, courtesy of Nadia's trademark over cautiousness. We dropped off the car and took a shuttle to the airport. The shuttle driver left us at the arrivals terminal, which confused us a little, but we found departures and checked in.

We had a couple of hours to wait before our flight so we had a quick snack and then made our way to the gate. We had to walk to the furthest departure lounge at the airport. After a short wait, where we made good headway on a crossword puzzle, the boarding process began. We passed the boarding gate only to find that instead of walking into the tunnel to the plane, we were ushered onto a bus on the tarmac! We were then shuttled across the airport, giving way to taxiing aircraft, to finally board the plane. It was the most interesting boarding process we have ever experienced.

Once finally on the plane, our take off was delayed while a slight techincal issue was sorted out. In the mean time a very lovely flight attendant came and offered us an empty Skycouch so that we could have one each instead of sharing one. Of course we jumped at the offer, so once the plane took off, Nadia moved to her new seats and we both settled in for our flight to Auckland.

The extra space meant that we were both able to get a bit more sleep. We then had a short wait at Auckland for our final flight to Melbourne. Nadia's Dad was there to pick us up. We stopped very quickly at Nadia's parent's house to say hi to her Mum and grab some pantry staples that they had for us. Dad then dropped us off home, where we found that Damien's parents had done some work in our front garden while we were away.

We collected our cats from their boarding cattery, and found that they had become very popular with the staff who were very sad to see them go. They spent the rest of the day reaquainting themselves with the house and the 2 of us.

We cooked the lasagne that Nadia's mum made us for dinner and then unpacked our bags. The challenge now is to try and stay up as long as we can despite jetlag and the long journey starting to hit us both.