We spent our last morning walking back to Auckland Domain (domain being the name used for public parks). There is a glasshouse there - the Wintergarden - which also includes an Italian styled formal water garden, and a fernery, as well as several glass houses. All well worth admiring - they had some of those giant water lily pads that we had seem previously at The Eden Project in Cornwall.
We ate our last lunch at the hostel. I had planned on phoning my sister, and updating this blog - but the lines that supported both the public internet and the phone at the hostel were on the fritz. Hence this late entry, and a number of queries from friends asking if we were 'back yet'.
We booked the shuttle for the airport journey - an exercise in decreasing costs if you find extra people to go with you. It takes a while for them to pick up their complement (about 12), but it was interesting to talk to the driver. He is a South African - we think of Boer descent - who came to New Zealand after losing family members in Africa. He got into the shuttle business with a view to the World Cup of football, to be played in the fall of this year.
The flight back was not as comfortable as on the way out - we had three people in three seats, and I was in the middle. But we survived. And we did get seats together. When I booked there were so few left that we had not been seated in the same row, so someone did some rearranging after the fact.
LAX was unthrilling - airport security loses its novelty fast - but everyone was reasonable, and eventually we made our way onto the Air Canada flight and thence safely back to Toronto (pre-bought sandwich in hand, with sighs for the Air New Zealand meals).
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