We awakened bleary eyed at 8am (ouch!), had some breakfast and headed out to the "best bushwalk in New Zealand, as rated by Lonely Planet" - or at least that's how the Bed & Breakfast owner described it.
Very soon, we were walking through a pretty rainforest, except that this time, it actually felt like a rainforest rather than a decaying, drought ridden 'dry' forest from Australia (check out our entry for O'Reillys). Water here, was like blood flowing through a body, forging its vein's from ancient limestone and allowing us to meander through the caves that remained.
From a rainforest to raining in real life - Our destination was a rather wet Hamilton, which in no way resembled the Canadian city. Upon checking into our Motel room, Shawna was very pleased to discover that she had the luxury of a private room with a King sized bed and intended to sleep on it sideways (or at least diagonally).
We spent the evening at the Cock & Bull pub, watching the netball (which was showing on multiple stations in New Zealand) and waiting for our hearty (but not necessary healthy) food to be prepared. In the morning, the rain had stopped and we strolled around by the river before traveling full circle, back to Auckland again.
Melissa, Shawna and Colin had their last supper together (for this trip), which consisted of a good square meal of Wendy's Hamburgers. Plenty of hugs goodbye and fond farewells took place, before Shawna departed into the best Hostel in Auckland (as rated by her).
The next day Colin & Melissa reanimated like zombies at 4am (Double Ouch!) and made their way to the airport, to catch a flight to Brisbane Australia. Stumbling through the security checks one of the guards was rather interested in Colin's iPhone - "Wow, what's that?! Oh you must turn it on and show me, to ahh, make sure it's not a Security threat!"
Next up: At long last and with great expectations - Brisbane
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