If you look up Hamilton in any guide book you will read that it is not a very exciting place to visit and is more a passing through point than a tourist destination. For us it was a must visit as it is where Michael spent a summer playing rugby around 9 years ago. He was keen to go back to his old haunts to see if anything had changed both at the rugby club he played at and the town he lived in for some 6 weeks all those years ago. I having heard all about his trip wanted to see some of the places he had been and we still hadn't managed to get any warm clothes so I wanted to try and get some shopping time in too. It was a pretty long drive to Hamilton and we had started early as Michael had read on the internet that Waikato (the local rugby team) were playing a game at 2.30 so we were keen to get there for that. Soon Michael was starting to recognise some of the neighboring towns and their rugby clubs as places he had trained and played. It was really amazing how good his memory was considering it had been 9 years ago! When we got into Hamilton town centre it was as if he had only been there a couple of weeks previously, pointing out bars, shops and the cinema that the boys had been to during their stay! We headed straight to the stadium to see if it was starting to get busy for the impending game. Much to our disappointment when we arrived at the stadium there wasn't really any life about it and certainly not what you would expect from the match day of such a big club! On closer inspection the internet had been wrong and we were really annoyed that we weren't going to get to watch a game as we had been really looking forward to it! Instead we had a walk around the stadium and next to the Waikato stadium there was the club that Michael had played with called Fraser Tech so it was pretty cool for him to be back and able to see where he had played. It took us a while to spot Fraser Tech's club house as sometime in the last 9 years they had built a massive road right through the centre of the club and an underpass which links the clubhouse on one side to the pitch on the other!! As there was no game on at the neighboring stadium and it was a Tuesday the club was shut. We had hoped to be able to go back into the clubhouse and see if Michael knew anyone but it wasn't to be as there was nobody around. After a short walk down memory lane we headed back to the centre of town to find an internet café to try and find out when the game we wanted to see was actually taking place. As it turned out quite a few websites listed the Tuesday as game day however when we asked around the game wasn't taking place until the Saturday by which point we would have moved on. We caught up on a few emails before heading back to the van and going in search of our campsite which was on the outskirts of the city centre.The next day and we had one thing on our minds SHOPPING! We were already getting fed up wearing the same jumper and whilst the mac in a sac keeps you dry its not exactly a stylish garment. There were a couple of big shopping centres in Hamilton and whilst the majority of clothes were summer things the choice was better than that in Auckland so we soon managed to get some things. We got 2 jumpers for mike and a jacket and jumper for me all for about 80 pounds so we were happy and for once we didn't look like a couple of geography teachers on a school trip!!! After lunch and another quick look around the shops we walked back to the campsite to drop off our purchases. We had a time for a short rest and then a change of clothes to head back into town to watch the New Zealand vs. Samoa game in one of the many sports bars in Hamilton. We chose to go to the official sports bar of the Waikato team as we had been told that the team would be there giving out promotional vouchers and other prizes. We arrived in plenty of time to get two seats right in front of one of the massive screens and took advantage of the happy hour for about an hour before the game kicked off. It was a really fun night and which rather predictably the All Blacks kicked ass. It was really great to be amongst New Zealanders when there is an All Blacks game on. They take their rugby very seriously which makes for a great atmosphere for us. After the game and quite a few glasses of wines for me and pints of whatever was going free for Mike, we moved on to another bar called The Outback. This was the only bar which Michael had wanted to go back to as it held many fond memories for him of all the boys on one of their very boozy and mischievous nights out! It was really fun for him to go back there to see that nothing had changed at all, for me by this point the wine had gone to my head so I would have thought anywhere that sold more wine was amazing! We stayed for one more drink, played a couple of games of pool before literally falling into a taxi back to camp!The next morning and I only have one thing to say about this entire day GROAN……… My head felt like someone had planted an axe in it, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth and I I think I could have stripped paint with my breath it was almost radioactive! Much to our disgust we had to evacuate the campsite by 10am and for that I say DOUBLE GROAN! We were moving at a snails pace trying to get the van ready to go and by 10.15 we were getting chased of the site "for cleaning"? Couldn't really understand that one as we slept in our own van and I am pretty sure for your ten quid a night they don't clean your van in the morning but I was too ill to ask! We headed straight to town in search of the first greasy spoon we could find! So after a massive plate of bacon, eggs, toast, tomato, hash browns (extra hash browns because we asked them to hold the mushrooms) and 4 paracetamols later we were felt almost human again! So with full bellies we were ready for the next leg of our journey to visit the glow worm caves in Waitomo.