We arrived in Hamilton on Friday 7th december, and it was a cloudy, cold day - just what you wanted! We were told the walk to our hostel took 10 minutes, but they did not take into account that we would be carrying 10 months worth of stuff on our backs and that the Fijians had moved all my straps so they were not set up properly! Plus we had eaten something really nasty the day before and neither of us felt well.

30 minutes of walking up several hills later we arrived at our hostel, the YWCA. Everyone was really friendly and they let us get checked in and settled before we had to worry about getting money! We were placed in a little complex of 4 rooms, which were speacious enough and cosy. many of the residents there are long term, and work during the day, so we didnt see them often!

We spent the day having a wander around the city centre to get our bearings and just have a travellers nosy at where was worthwhile checking out and exploring more! One of the best things about our hostel was that it had a TV and our evening was spent watching a mixture of Friends, NZ and US comedies and other random entertainment shows! It may not seem very interesting, but after a month of minimal TV and not much choice it was lovely to relax.

On Saturday we went to Hamilton Zoo! It was a cool way to spend a few hours. They had Rhinos, Giraffes, a reptile house that contained no snakes at all (they do not have snakes in NZ) and no frogs, just a gekko and lizards! It was a lovely day so it was ace to wander round watching all the animals. I loved the giraffes and Andrew loved the chimps. There were loads of different animals - as is usually the case in zoos but seeing it in really nice weather makes it much better! There was meant to be a tiger and a cheetah, but we saw neither of them, so they may have been lying to us on that one!

After the zoo we walked to Hamilton Gardens - which turned out to be quite a walk, but never mind, we are slowly getting fit! The gardens themselves are HUGE! so we just walked around the mini gardens, which are each a different theme. From english cottage garden, to japenese garden of contemplation, Italian renaissance and chinese they had about 6 different themes, all of them reaolly close together but segregated, so you literally felt as though you were walking from one side of the world to the other, without the painful feet! They are obviously really well maintained and looked after, and they were truly beautiful. We could have stayed there for ages and taken so many photos as there were breathtaking views from some places, but we had to contain ourselve - we still have 9 months to go after all!

Hamilton is a lovely city. We were advised not to go as it was boring, but we had fun, although its not as tourist orientated as other cities, all the details were for other cities such as Rotorua, Taupo or Auckland. But we really enjoyed our time, it just shows how you need to make your own mind up about places! Off to Waitomo next. Will Keep you posted!