We both woke up like two hobbits who had enjoyed a massive banquet the night before. Both rubbing our stomachs and thinking it might be a good idea if we skipped breakfast and just headed on to elevenses.

We rose pretty slowly this morning with thoughts of that American guy singing the song from the Green Dragon on our walk back to the bus, the English guy who asked way to many questions and the girl who dressed up in a medieval outfit and claimed it was one from The Shire.

Today was all about making our way back to Auckland and Claire’s parents. Although a stop in Hamilton on the way was being made to meet another of Claire’s many friends. We arrived in Hamilton quite early and has a wander down to the river. Our initial thought was we would take a stroll into the botanic gardens but seemingly the weather system of this week has been sun for 10 minutes, rain for 15. Repeat. So we managed to park in the car park of the gardens but never got out. Our river walk was interrupted as expected by rain and we took shelter under a portion of the boat shed whilst watching the rain yet again stream down.

We visited the art gallery, or in fact the art gallery shop. We tried to enter the exhibitions but we’re told they weren’t ready until tomorrow. The museum though had an interesting exhibit in Maori culture and the sacrifice of NZ in the First World War.

Lunch was then eaten in a portacabin cafe whilst chatting to Claire’s friend from med school. Lunch over we made the drive back to Auckland.
Having not seen many shops yet I asked Claire to take me to see some. Due to the increasing traffic as we got closer to Auckland, we pulled into a Westfield like shopping centre at Sylvia Park. Quite like a Westfield it felt like being in Australia with all the shops basically being the same.

We then decided to see a movie. For how long we’ve been together we’ve seen very few so Nocturnal Animals was our choice and it was a real cracker. One of the best films I’ve seen in a while with lots of meanings not exactly obvious and a story within a story.

A Vietnamese restaurant on our way back to Claire’s parents and our day was done, we head into our final weekend in NZ.

IJS