A slow start to the day, we rose, washed, ate our muesli, finished off our fruit and packed our bags for the final time in New Zealand. We then sat in the hostel lobby for a while, reading. Laura took a look through the jailhouse history book, thrilled to learn that there was never any running water in the cells – slop buckets all the way!
We decided to drive into down and take a walk around the botanic gardens where we played the Poison Plants Murder Mystery quiz that happened to be on – essentially a walk around a small garden with audio clips of crime descriptions, locations, plant symptoms etc. requiring that you put the peices together and solve the case! It was pretty fun and a nice stress free way to spend the hour before our flight.
We were a little nervous on checking in the car, as I had noticed a small crack (rather than the plentiful chips) on the windsheild after picking the car up. It was almost certainly there when we picked up the car, but went unnoticed – the lesson is to check the windscreen of any hire car from the inside before you sign the paperwork. Thankfully it was not picked up, and although the return took a long time, we were not in such a great hurry as we had been in Auckland.
We checked in, paid our NZD$25 departure tax (these countries are so cheeky!) and I managed to eat a Boost in a record time as food could not be transported between countries. We were left with NZD$24 to blow on lunch – we spent it easily, but every single item from the cafe in Departures was lame, lame, lame.
We were then happily sat on the plane when an official boarded and tapped me on the shoulder, requesting our tickets. Unfortunately the check in staff had taken the flight for our Queenstown to Christchurch flight that we had told them we were not going to take. It was all sorted, but the need for paper tickets really did complicate a lot of the interactions at airports. Because Silk Air (the airline that will take us to Cambodia) requires paper tickets, every single other flight on our RTW route also had to be paper. Needlessly complicated.
The flight arrived in Sydney on time to a dry, but cloudy day. We could help but comment on the weird clouds over the city, not knowing that Sydney had been experiencing thunderstorms over the past week. We proceeded to the Mercantile Hotel in The Rocks area of Sydney and had to wait for a fellow to turn up to check up in. A surly and shifty fellow, he didn’t make eye contact and just handed us the keys. After such a welcome, we were relieved to find that the room itself was spacious, charming and clean, overlooking the character filled streets of The Rocks.
I wasn’t in the best of moods and the rapidly worsening weather didn’t help – but in spite of that Laura dragged me out onto the streets of Sydney where we traipsed to Darling Harbour through the now pouring rain, as lightening lit up the sky. Not the Sydney I had expected and my temperament was as foul as the weather.
We wandered around the harbour which was lined with bars and restaurants, all very glossy but lacking any character and (tonight at least) lacking any customers. Laura insisted we make the most of it and steered me into the aquarium which was open until midnight.
Thankfully, my mood was immediately lifted by a cheeky platypus – so cute! The place was completely deserted, so we were able to see everything in peace – dozens of fish we had snorkeled with in the Cooks, plus seal, sharks, turtles, penguins, stingrays, cod trout and shark rays. Brilliant spot and recommend visiting it late at night to avoid the crowds.
On the walk home we stopped into a Seven Eleven for dinner – a slurpee, chocolate milk, bananas and an apple. On getting back to the hotel we saw dozens of huge fruit bats swinging through the trees above us. They were massive! I then fell asleep while Laura watched ‘Forensic Investigations’, but woke at about 11pm when the music started in the pub downstairs. Thankfully it had stopped by midnight and we both slept well.
