**Will add pictures soon. Forgot my hard drive today**
I've been so busy catching up this month, I hadn't even finished my final NZ post. For shame! Oh, well here it is.
Sunday, October 2 was our final rugby game and it was a great one, New Zealand vs Canada. The crowd was an absolute sea of black and they were all excited to see the All Blacks play. Canada had maybe a thousand fans out of the 60,000 there but they were great fans. Canada did not stand a chance against the AB's but they played very well. They weren't scared and played hard. It ended up being a great game. After the game we started our trek back north.
We only had three days remaining and we really wanted to re-visit some spots that we had been on our honeymoon. Mike drove us the 5-ish hours up to Rotorua that night and we had a good nights sleep at our hotel. The next morning we headed out for a run together in the rain and ended up going about 10k total. We did a 7k loop through the Rotorua Redwood forest and it was majestic. With all the steam from the various thermal things and the huge trees it was a wonderful run. Getting back to the hotel though turned out to be a soggy project. The light rain that we were running in suddenly turned to a downpour and we got soaked. Back at the hotel we had hot showers, skyped with Mom & Dad about the fire and decided what we were going to do next. We decided on a little bit of shopping, diner at a place called Brew and then a trip to the Polynesian Spa. All spots were wonderful and we really enjoyed our time at the spa.
The next morning we headed north again. Stopping in Hamilton we had a wonderful walk through the Hamilton Gardens and a delicious lunch. The Hamilton Gardens were some of the best gardens I have ever visited because they were so interesting. They had a whole section of the garden dedicated to different types of gardens. A Japanese garden, an Indian garden, an Italian Renaissance garden... so neat. We ended up about 20 minutes south of Auckland to stay that evening and we went to a fantastic little pub for dinner.
Wednesday was our last day and we headed into Auckland to see some of the rugby tourist stuff and find some spots from our honeymoon. We found our little park, Emily Place. It was my favorite part of the whole trip. I can't believe Mike & I have been married almost 5 years. We took a hike through huge Auckland Domain and then tripped down Parnell Street looking for a little restaurant that we loved. Unfortunately when we found it, it was empty and under construction. Bummer, but we still had a nice time shopping and walking on such a beautiful day. After that it was back to the airport to come home. 30 some hours later we made it home and were wide awake at 2am! It was an amazing trip and I couldn't have asked for anything else.
