Day 96, 21st November 2011. Tauranga - Auckland, New Zealand

Today was the day we were starting the journey home. Technically we weren't on our way until tomorrow, but we were going to the airport today. It was weird waking up in our little bedroom in Fabian and Treena's house for the last time. We woke up at 10am, and had planned to leave at 12, so we had 2 hours this morning to get ready and make sure we had packed everything. We showered, ate, and double checked everything, including the weight of all our luggage, which thankfully was not overweight, and then it was time to leave.

Gary was mostly sad to say goodbye to Archie I think, he really loves that dog!

The drive to Auckland airport took about 3 hours, Gary and Fabian sat in the front of the car chatting the whole way. I was just feeling really sad to be going home, but also excited to see my family. When we arrived at our airport hotel, we said goodbye to Fabian, which made Gary sad because I know how much he had missed him when they had left the UK, but we knew we would definitely be seeing them again.

Our airport hotel was ok, there was nothing around though. We walked 10 minutes down the road and found a shop, so we bought some snacks and breakfast for the morning, and then went back to the room and watched TV for a few hours.

We walked a bit further down the road at dinner time, and found a resteraunt to eat in, the food was so shit. One thing I was definitely not going to miss about New Zealand was the food. I really did not enjoy the food in NZ and could not wait to get home and eat some comfort food. I can't even remember what we ate but it was bad.

There was nothing at all to do in the area, so we went back to the room and just watched TV for the night. It felt so weird that after all this time, it was over. I was really excited to see my family, but apart from that I did not want to go home at all. I hate London and I feel like there is nothing here for me, and there is so much more in the world I want to see. I was not ready at all to go home and go back to normality. Of course I was so nervous about telling our parents the big secret news. Wasn't sure how they would react, so it was making me really worried.