In the end, I settled on one old activity and one new one. The "old" one is also the thing I've most wanted to do all year: the evening dinner tour at Hobbiton. Even better, Federica and Daisy decided to join me! And from there, I'd heard to soak up some of my last New Zealand natural beauty (for a while) on the Coromandel Peninsula.
The dinner tour was everything I'd ever dreamed of and even more. It was a really big group of 48 people, and many of them were from a tour group and they were all old and adorable. We had two tour guides, Tessa and Ethan, and it will shock no regular reader of this blog to learn that Ethan was VERY HANDSOME. The evening dinner tour is his brainchild, and he runs all of them and also private tours for celebrities. Who do I kill for that job?!?!?!?!?
We went through Hobbiton during the day to start with, and it was nice that all three of us had been there before because we were able to enjoy the atmosphere without jockeying desperately for pictures. Still, we got a few!
There were 3 big tables set up in the room so we got a chance to meet our neighbors too. It was everything I dreamed it would be and even more. One of my greatest regrets of my time in New Zealand is going to be the fact that I couldn't do the feast proper justice- I was still getting my appetite back from being sick, and I was sort of anxious about the emotions of leaving the Dwellington that morning-- but what I DID eat was life changing, and I WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK. SO SO SO worth the money. Fly to New Zealand just for this.
Next we headed to Hamilton for the night. Our backpacker was really luxurious-- three single beds, and a tv in the room, and they gave each of us a candy! But it was weirdly deserted and the free breakfast the next morning wasn't real. Actually, all of Hamilton was kind of weirdly deserted. But it's only just the beginning of tourism season.
Sunday had started out very sad with goodbyes and Monday did too. Daisy and Chippa and I found a really cute little alley with a lovely cafe and even more lovely outdoor seating, and we had a lingering goodbye brunch, but all things must end. I walked them to the bus stop and we hugged and then off they drove, back to Auckland. I'll definitely see those two again so it's less goodbye then see you later-- but it's been such a good time in my life, and it's changing, and it's sad, and that's just the way of the world.