Today was Tama and I’s last day of our road trip across central North Island. We saw some really beautiful things, we listened to some really jammin’ tunes, and we had lots of meaningful conversations. Overall, I would say that it was a successful road trip!

But with all of that being said, we still needed to drive for about 3 1/2 hours to get back to Auckland.

We decided that I would drive the whole way home because 1) I wanted more practice driving on the left 2) Tama wanted to watch YouTube videos. So that’s what we did. I drove and sang super loud, and Tama drowned me out with his earbuds. It was a nice set up.

My 2 top music jams during this road trip were:

Finally we stopped off for lunch (my stomach was about to eat itself), and I was ready to do some damage. I saw the steak and I thought to myself …

And boy, that steak was worth it. Small towns know exactly how to prepare a delicious steak (poor Betsy was probably slaughtered out back). Nom nom nom. No regrets.

We got back to Auckland, and I was exhausted. We ventured out for some food (takeaway – lawd knows I didn’t have the energy for a restaurant), and I struggled to not be whinny. Not sure how well I did (ask Tama haha). We got back to the house, ate our food, and watched Shark Tank until it was time to go to bed.

And that’s when it got sad. It was time to say goodbye to Tama.

Tama had to leave first thing in the morning to meet up with his family for the weekend, so that meant it was time to part ways. And y’all, goodbyes are just not easy. I don’t know if I’m overly sentimental or what, but I hate saying goodbyes at this point. So needless to say, it wasn’t my favorite part of the day.

And then I passed out into a peaceful sleep.