Day 24 - Monday 6th October

For a change, we were able to sleep in this morning because we had no APT commitments. It had been raining overnight and the forecast was for showers later this morning.

When we went downstairs for breakfast at 8am, many of the other people on our APT tour were there too. It gave us another opportunity to say goodbye to them. Although we'd expected only a continental breakfast, there was hot food too.

We checked out at 9:15am and left our bags at the hotel reception.

Last night we'd decided to go to the Christchurch botanic gardens with Peter and Yolanda provided that the weather was fine. Since it was only about 1km away, we decided to walk.

The botanical gardens have a good reputation and it was soon apparent why. It is a large area with green lawn, colourful, flower beds, tall trees, smaller pretty trees and a rose garden. There is a narrow river winding through the park that is crossed by attractive pedestrian bridges.

Near one of the ponds, we spotted a mother duck and her ducklings on the lawn. She was chasing away any other ducks that came close to her ducklings. Eventually the father turned up too. There were plenty of other ducks and birds in the ponds and the river.

We went inside the conservatory and marvelled at the beautiful flowers. Another area of the conservatory was heated and contained a display of tropical plants.

At one stage, I noticed a gondolier on the river with two female passengers in a boat. He was standing at the end of the boat and pushing it along with a long pole - just like you might see in Venice or on the river behind Cambridge University. I ran to the bridge and the river bank to take photos.

The next stop was the cafe in the middle of the gardens for a cup of coffee. While we were there, it started to rain and, by the time we left, the rain was quite heavy and there was a very strong wind blowing. So we decided to abandon our visit to the rest of the gardens. We walked briskly to the museum and ordered a  taxi to take us back to the hotel.

We had about an hour and a half to wait in hotel foyer for the van that would take us to the airport. This gave time for our clothes to start to dry. It also gave us yet another opportunity to say goodbye to fellow APT travellers.

The van pickup us up at 12:45pm and it only took about 20 minutes to get to the airport. Just like Auckland airport, Christchurch airport was not crowded - especially compared with Sydney airport. There was no problem with queues. They had automated systems for customs - you just feed your passport into a machine and stand in front of another  machine to have your photo taken.

First, we had some lunch and then the girls went off to look at the duty free shops.

The plane left on time at 3:45pm but arrived about 20 minutes early (before 5pm). Furthermore,  it took no time at all the get through customs - there were no queues and they were using similar automated systems to Christchurch.

Even when I bought some duty free scotch, there were no queues at the checkout. Although Suzy had ticked the box about bringing in wooden goods (some drink coasters she's bought in NZ), the customs people decided not to check our bags.

APT had arranged a driver to take us home but we were in the arrivals hall by 5:15pm - 10 minutes before he arrived. Once again it was a professional driver in a large comfortable car. We were home by 6pm.

Our New Zealand adventure was over. I'd been wanting to have a holiday in New Zealand for ages and now I've done it. People had told me good things about New Zealand. They were right - it had been a fabulous experience with lots of great memories. Partly because of the places we'd been and the spectacular natural scenery and partly because of the people we'd met.