And just like that, our wonderful Australian holiday has been and gone. We were away 8 nights in total as we had a night in Auckland before our early morning flight to Australia.
We left Napier on a beautiful spring day, and enjoyed lunch at a waterside restaurant in Ahuriri before our flight.
Once we checked into our motel, it was time to catch a train into the Auckland CBD, where we checked out the new city rail link stations, and also visited the Sky City Tower. It was a lovely evening for some city viewing.
Up early, for a short walk from our motel to airport, this trip we were flying into the Sunshine Coast airport, only a 3 1/2 hour flight.
We arrived to sunny, warm weather in the Sunshine Coast, and after sorting our rental car, it was a short drive to Mooloolaba, to find our accommodation, Osprey Appartments. These are a short walk from the main street, and directly across the road is the beautiful beach.
We headed out to find some lunch and explore the main street and beach.
Glenn and I joined the surf club, and would enjoy a few cold drinks and meals here over the week of our stay.
Most mornings we'd be awake early so would head out for a walk and enjoy a coffee before the morning warmed up, and we got on with our plans for the day.
Of course, one of the days involved checking out the Sunshine Plaza, a large shopping mall.
My absolute favourite day of our trip was visiting Australia Zoo, somewhere I'd been wanting to go for a very long time. And we were in luck as the Irwin family were there, being school holidays. Crikey!
That's Robert Irwin, enticing Graham the crocodile, their biggest one! The afternoon show was very entertaining. I think we spent nearly five hours at the Zoo, and it was very warm day so we were all very worn out that night.
We also checked out the Eumundi Markets, hundreds of stalls - clothing, food, arts and crafts, skincare, etc, we were there on a Saturday so it was really busy with lots of people around.
The weather couldn't have been better. A few days were on the hot side, but we thoroughly enjoyed being in the sunshine.
Even though we were busy getting out and about most days, we still found time to relax by the pool, enjoy a swim, read a good book, and simply enjoy being on holiday.
We enjoyed delicious meals out for breakfast and dinner, so many great cafes and restaurants to choose from.
On our last full day we decided to go on a cruise on the Mooloolah River.
A good way to take in the sights, lots of amazing properties, great views back to Mooloolaba, and learn a bit of history of the area as the Skipper told us lots of stories throughout the trip.
Before we knew it, our lovely holiday had nearly finished and it was time for our flight home.
We arrived back in Auckland about 6 pm then our flight to Napier had us arriving back in Hawkes Bay about 9.30 pm. We finally arrived home about 10.45 pm, happy to be home and see our good boy, Diesel. What a fabulous holiday we had, especially spending time with Hannah and her boyfriend.
See you soon x
