That night when we arrived we were given silver service by the restaurant staff, mainly I suspect because they were terrified of the prospect of a bad review at Michael's hands. The drive back to Auckland was fairly long and drawn-out and punctuated only by some fairly dismal weather. At some stage in the journey I got to reflect on the terrible quality of New Zealand drivers. We stayed over night in Auckland intending to rise at a leisurely time and make our way sedately out to the airport. I'm sure, still got the speed cameras ticking over.
Rental cars have their uses.
Still we were successful and my girlfriend made her plane with seconds to spare. I spent another couple of hours returning the hire car and lurking in the airport lounge before winging my way home to Sydney. Next time I'd like to see some of the South Island too. Nick Jenkins .