My turbo nutter car made it easily in the two hour journey from Auckland to Hamilton.
I hadn’t managed to get a hold of my mate’s folks but decided to head down anyway. During the whole drive I could have been in Scotland – exactly like people had said to me, this place (well, buts of it anyway) are so much like home. I even started the journey next to a place (pub I think) called Edinburgh Rock, and there are so many place names and things associated. One of the toy shops was called Wee Willie Winkies.
I got a hold of my mate’s folks after arriving, and stopped off at J’s Backpackers in Hamilton for the night. It’s a few kilometres from town but a really chilled out place with a nice pub ten minutes walk from it. There were quite a few people here who seemed to get ‘stuck’ in Hamilton, or decided to stop and work for a bit. I often wish I had that option in places as I could really do with stopping off in one place for a good while.