Hamilton

Cricket, Gardens, New Friends

We left Taupō on another sunny day and drove to Hamilton, stopping in Tirana for ice cream and picked up some pies for supper. Found our airbnb, in a recently built townhouse complex right near Seddon Park, where Doug would be watching cricket for two days. We could see the park from the balcony, which was the primary reason for selecting this Airbnb. Right in the city meant a lot of traffic noise though, not ideal, but convenient. Once we managed to maneuver the too big SUV into the teeny garage, phew, we took a walk around the pretty park to find the entrance to the cricket ground that Doug would need.

Game day 1! (You knew the cricket can last up to 5 days, right?) New Zealand vs South Africa. The South Africa team was not their A-list players. Those players stayed home for another round of matches. Hard to know who to root for, the locals or the underdogs.

Meanwhile, I took an Uber to Hamilton Gardens and spent the day wandering through all the different gardens. The central area of the garden is divided into nearly 20 different garden “rooms”, each focused on a different culture, era in history or other gardening topic. Quite beautifully done. I managed to visit all of the different gardens and revisited my favorites: the Indian garden - so full of color and scent, and the Māori garden, a very relaxing area with interesting details about Māori agriculture and culture. I didn’t know that the distinctly NZ kumara sweet potato actually originated in South America and was brought to NZ by early Polynesian explorers, amazing. A nice lunch in the cafe and an ice cream break kept me going! Was hoping to return the next day.

That evening Sue & Neville picked us up for dinner. We hadn’t met, but they’re good friends of my cousin Suzanne and she connected us with them. We had a wonderful evening with them. The restaurant was very slow with their service, we were there for at least 3 hours, which gave us lots of time to visit. But as it was getting later and later, we were getting very hungry! The waitress finally brought us a huge serving of bread, a plate of fries/chips, and - omg - another whole bottle of wine. We were very well wined & dined by the time we left!

Sue offered to pick me up the next day for lunch and trip to their shop, Splashy, where I’d have fun painting some ceramics. Frustratingly, the pies from Tirana came back to bite me. I wasn’t in any state to go out until late in the afternoon, when I took a short walk and found a good coffee shop. So, sadly, I missed spending some more time with Sue.

Doug enjoyed another day at the cricket ground. We packed up and got ready to move on the next day. Last stop in Hamilton was a little yarn shop outside of the center city called Yarn On. And what a wonderful little shop it was. Yarn was acquired.Read more