Day 5 & 6- Hamilton

Yesterday we had spotted a disc golf course and I got excited to give it a go, but unfortunately were all out of frisbees! This problem was overcome as Shane had located said object on his trip to the petrol station. We put our new purchase to good use embarking on the shorter and easier 9 hole course. We had a slow start as it appeared much more difficult than throwing a frisbee in a bucket sounds. The first hole was kind of as expected as we got to grips with our new sport. Andy and Shane were doing pretty well, the same couldn't be said for me. And with only one frisbee between us all there was a lot of running forwards and backwards.

The difficulty increased drastically after hole 3 and we soon realised we were playing the world championship course, so gave ourselves a little break. We got to hole 6 somehow after running down hills and climbing mountains all in the search of the next bucket. Yet this hole was actually impossible. It was so difficult it took Shane half an hour of running around to even locate the bucket which was some 150km away! All in a par 4... Mental! With the rain starting to come down and a lake between us and the bucket, we abandoned the course! But as you can see from the below shots we did look pretty cool playing and it was good fun!

We’d definitely worked up an appetite for lunch! Filling a hole at a chicken shop we were going to set off to Michaella's having finally organised a date (for context Michaella is an ex KFH friend). The trip had been going so well it was about time something went wrong! Ironically the moment came as Andy and I were discussing how well our camper was doing and it was good to not have the car troubles we experienced with the Cleo! Then right on cue our camper decided to give up! Thankfully with Shane in tow we could use his phone to call the breakdown service. We spent a lovely afternoon in the shopping center car park awaiting the AA. Finally back on the road about two hours delayed we were on our way to Hamilton.

With some gin in hand we had a much overdue catch up about KFH, our trip and the Kiwi lack of festive love. On that point we were told we could help them pick out their tree tomorrow! Result! Although we are gutted to be missing our traditional Christmas it has been fun playing a part in so many of our friends festivities this year. They took us to a local pub for some grub and both hit a wall fairly early, so we headed back to another bed. We have been fairly lucky so far at nabbing real beds to stay in to ease us into travel life. Shane had headed back to Auckland, although we would be seeing him again later.

Andy was awoken in the night by my scream as I dreamt he was covered in worms, before I somehow fell out the bed! An event I only recalled later the next day when Andy brought it up! Oh dear!

Next day, we headed to the world famous Hamilton gardens. Apparently they are voted the 5th best gardens in the world; and to be fair they were pretty good even if we had to dodge the odd raindrop. With more Chinese tourists and their photo style we opted to get into the spirit and re-enact their poses. Our attempts are below!

Next we helped pick out the tree as promised; although Christmas here seems so lacklustre and not the full on excitement Iz and I experience! The only time we saw an element of that excitement was when a song called Snoopy's Christmas was played. I've never heard this before but as we also found out later Kiwis love it! I wouldn't call it a classic but any festive cheer shouldn't be dampened here! We sprinkled our pixie dust and helped decorate Michaella's lounge... Well with the four decorations we had. Yet we convinced Michaella she needed more and after finally getting in the Christmas mood upon seeing our handy work. Shane had also informed us that a Christmas parade was occurring in Hamilton today. As it was on theme we all went... Well until the downpour brought it to an abrupt end.

With our first trip to K Mart and some new decorations under our belts out was back to the house for drinks and more decorating! The results equalled "the most Christmassy we have ever been" quoted by Michaella! It's funny that this effort wouldn't even register as Christmas in our house!