Friday 14th November 2025

Friday 14^th November

SHE SAID:

We both had one eye on the clock, as we were getting up at 6am for our drive to the airport. It was, thankfully, an incident-free drive & we were so grateful to off-load that awful EV MG. We complained to the girl who took the keys & she said everyone complains about it. She also said we didn’t need to worry about returning it powered up & we could have taken it to the international terminal! NO ONE bothered to tell Geoff this when he picked it up!

We had a fair wait for the New Zealand flight, but it was a short 2 ½ hour hop over to Auckland. Our new hire car is lovely in comparison; petrol, 800km on the clock, & Geoff said much better to drive.

It was 8pm when we arrived at the Salty Dog Inn at Snell;s Beach, we were just in time for dinner. A couple of beers for Geoff & a glass of red for me went down well at the end of a long travelling day.

Going, going, gone...

In Flight

Arrival to NZ

Bluee 2 & leaving Auckland

 The Salty Dog Inn

HE SAID:

I never sleep well with an alarm set. This was no different. Oh well. We said our farewells to Mick and Jac a bit after 6am, with plenty of time allowed for traffic snarls, rcharging crappy EVs, and long check in queues. We only came to a stop once on the M4, and made it to drop off the MG heap around 7:40-ish. We were both rather relieved at this point; our experience with this car was far from good. Anyway, managed to source a good, but over-priced bacon and egg roll in the terminal, the waited for boarding, which turned out to be an hour late. The flight itself was fine, with good food; a reminder of how much Qantas has diminished over the years.

Getting our hire car was delayed a short while as the only Budget staff member sat in the back office chatting on the phone, ignoring the customers at the counter. The adjoining Avis desk staff member helped us out when she could,  and she was a friendly, helpful person. After that we just headed north to Snell's Beach and our aged, though adequate digs at The Salty Dog, where the service, beer, and the food were good. In hindsight I realised that the toll road north of Auckland is the only straight stretch of road in NZ.