The flight back from Nelson to Auckland was uneventful. I remember Air NZ having touch screen entertainment screens on their bigger planes but Nelson is a tiny airport and we travelled back on a tiny propeller plane so there was no luxury!
We arrived back into Auckland in the late evening and had just two nights before our early morning flight back to London. We spent our final day in New Zealand going to Congress, the New Zealand Chess Championships. Bill had come to watch and Andrew, Sue and me went to a Malaysian restaurant near the venue.
The tournament was held at the Alexandra Park race course and I was impressed by the conditions. It was great to see lots of the Kiwi chess fraternity who we hadn’t seen for a couple of years. There was quite interesting chess too with Russell defeating Puchen on top board although Puchen came back to win the tournament in impressive style.
That evening we went for a final meal with Sue’s parents and a few of their friends, Bill, Ross and Lin. The restaurant was in another part of the city and it was a bit of a squeeze in the car with the five of us and three dogs and we didn’t exactly take the most direct route but made it in the end. Strangely enough it turned out to be another Malaysian restaurant but the food was very nice. Too soon it was time to say goodbye and heading back for our final pack. We were both sad to be leaving New Zealand and our friends and we’ll have to return as soon as we can.
We again were going via Incheon, South Korea, and this time we had a stopover for a night. After the Kiwi Summer the sub-zero temperatures came as a bit of a shock! We didn’t really get time to see any of the country; a transit bus from the airport to a pleasant hotel, a Korean-Japanese buffet dinner, a sleep and then back for the final leg.
Huge thanks to everyone who made our trip so memorable and Sue and I promise to return as soon as we possibly can.