I am waiting for my taxi now to take me to the airport and spending my last few hours at Ardmore Road in quiet reflection.
I have had a lot of fun here and have met some quality people. Sadly a lot of those people have moved on as I am about to do but I do find NZ to be quite a transient place, particularly Auckland.
Perhaps it is because 99% of my friends here are expats too. I regret a little that I did not have more Kiwi friends here but when you work on your own you do restrict opportunities to meet locals.
So after a weekend in Sydney I am off to California for three weeks before deciding whether to head back to the UK or perhaps travel down through Mexico.
The NZ working holiday visa I was on represented the best opportunity of staying long term in NZ but my heart was never in it in the end. NZ is just too distant and too quiet for me.
But it is still a wonderful place to visit and I have no regrets about having spent a fair chunk of my recent history in this little corner of the South Pacific.
Farewell and thanks for having me.