Up and out of the house by 6am today – off up to Auckland….

We stopped at the Flat Hills cafe for some breakfast after a leisurely trip up country – nice “rustic” spot for a break. It has a maze and a few farm animals to look at, but it had started spitting rain so we didn’t bother having too much of a looksee.

As we left, we passed Mangaweka International airport. A DC3 had obviously over-run the runway and they decided to set up the airport around it! Not quite sure how international “International” is, as a grass strip seems a bit limiting!

We arrived at Auckland airport just after 2pm, in good time to meet Louise’s parents arriving at just gone 3pm, so we parked up at the airport and went for a coffee.

We popped up to the viewing area after coffee and saw their aircraft pulling off the runway into the pans – trouble was we didn’t know it was theirs at the time

Once the aircraft had been advertised as landed, we rushed down to arrivals to meet Margaret and John as they came through the Arrivals door…….

A bit of an emotional reunion – but nothing we weren’t expecting! A fair number of hugs and tears followed….

We packed everything into the hire car and joined the rest of North Island traffic making its way into Auckland in the late afternoon – note to selves, we REALLY don’t like Auckland still. So many people, so many cars!

After finding the hotel (Note to self – must get road maps of the major cities!), the Barrycourt Quality Hotel, and unpacking the luggage quickly, we went out in the car to visit …… Torbay! We got an Indian on the way back, a takeaway meal one, which proved a little difficult as parking isn’t quite as easy as Wellington. However, it was gorgeous, and a lovely accompaniment to the evening views of the harbour from our very spacious hotel room!!