This morning we got up around half 8 and did the last bit of packing before going down for pancakes. Our flight wasn't until 16:20 so we had the morning to just browse the shops. We bought some souvenirs to get rid of all our loose change before heading back to the hostel. On the way back we bought some tim tams to taste. They're Australian chocolate biscuits and they're sold everywhere so we thought we'd try them. They are like penguin bars, but better. If you're ever in Australia I recommend eating lots of them.
We got the skybus to the airport around quarter past 1 and checked in. We had to prove we were planning on leaving New Zealand at some point after we arrived, and this explained why we hadn't been able to check in online when we tried previously. It took ages for the staff member to enter all the information and check everything was OK. Eventually she said it was fine and we got our boarding passes and checked in.
After we'd dropped our bags off we went to Hungry Jacks (Aussie Burger King). I paid on my card as I had no physical money left and got my food. I realised I had been charged too much and spoke to the server and they gave me a refund,in cash, meaning I had a whole load of loose change again. It was annoying because I didn't really want to spend it but I doubt any currency exchange would change 4 dollars for me. So instead I bought some random Australia stickers from an airport shop and put the change in a charity box.
Our flight ended up being delayed by almost an hour as the cabin crew were late arriving on another flight. We didn't board until 16:40 and took off at 17:15. As we flew away we got an amazing view over Melbourne with its skyscrapers towering over the surrounding residential areas. Lauren and myself had meals included in our ticket - no idea why as we hadn't selected it - and we were given egg and lettuce sandwiches. Neither of us like egg so they remained untouched and we gave them back when they came round to collect the rubbish.
During the flight we chatted with the Scottish girl next to us, who is doing almost the same route around New Zealand as us, just with a different bus company. She told us she'd been to Asia and absolutely loved it. A lot of people have told us how good Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam are so I'm really looking forward to getting there. We've heard a lot of good things.
Everyone on the flight had to fill out an arriving passenger form. You had to state if you were bringing in food and I had a half empty bag of pasta in my bag. You also had to state if you were bringing in medicines, and both Lauren and myself had paracetamol, ibuprofen etc. They didn't seem to mind although they did search my bag because my water bottle apparently looked like a pear.
We got the sky bus from outside the terminal into Auckland city and the stop was about a 5 minute walk down a really steep hill from the hostel, once we had actually figured out which stop to get off at. We checked in and got our room keys, and then had to go back to reception to get them reprogrammed as they didn't work, twice, before eventually getting into our room. The light was off and everyone was in bed. We just got our stuff, went to the bathroom, sorted ourselves out and got into bed.
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