While driving to Hamilton, we drive through a small town that made themselves a tourist stopping point by putting animals and flowers on the façade of their buildings — poppies and sheep for a start.
The Gardens of Hamilton was laid out with each area as a theme. We visited as many as we could in the time we had to visit.
Apparently I was excited to have captured a bird in flight on the camera.
Upon a closer look, the tree in the center looks like an oil painting!
I spent SEVEN HOURS at the Verizon store the day before I left for New Zealand. But I realize it was worth it because the camera quality was upgraded significantly.
This must’ve been the India section. Each of the four quadrants are identical.
I think I remember it took 20 full-time gardeners to keep up the gardens.
A little whimsy. The floor was an optical illusion. But the yard curving up in the corner was real.
‘lm>
These were fake trees that moved. What’s funny is that they covered these mechanical trees in ivy. But ivy apparently doesn’t like to grown on metal frames.
Click.
This happened all throughout NZ. When you sit at a restaurant, there’s a cooler with pitchers/bottles of filtered water and glasses. And you are supposed to go get your own.
Air New Zealand 1-1/2 hour flight from Auckland to Christchurch.
This meant we would not see Wellington (the country’s capital) nor get to take a ferry from one island (North) to the other (South). But it saved three days of the trip.
Christchurch is a cool town with lots of murals.
We wen to a Mexican restaurant. Between not liking rice and beans nor anything spicy, I ended up with roasted guacamole — 1-1/2 roasted avocados, made (smashed) at the table. m-m-m-m.
Can’t pass up a pair of wings. The cigar-smokin’ beauty wasn’t me. She was the outside sandwich board advertising the restaurant.
They have trams that come through the city. There’s a dinner car when you can reserve and eat dinner on it. Sadly, we didn’t book it soon enough.
There were a series of tremors that occurred within Christchurch rom September 2010 to December 2011. The severest of those events were the earthquake (magnitude from 7.0 to 7.1) that struck on September 4, 2010, and the large, destructive aftershock (magnitude 6.3) that occurred on February 22, 2011.
Half the cathedral collapsed and they decided to rebuild but ran out of money a few times. While building it, the city father’s decided to build a temporary church of corrugated cardboard. It’s been up since 2011 or so and is still being used. The outside is not much to look at; but the inside is quite impressive.
More cool murals discovered on our morning walk.
Matt picked us up and we went to some fantastic gardens. These buildings were once a university. The metal ‘stairway to Heaven” is metal hanging by a wire, but I thought it wonderful.
If there’s a tree or if there’s a rock available, I’ll climb it — I was a mountain goat in another life.
Gardens simply make me happy. Do you see the bird in the orange flowers?
HAIRPIN TURNS!! …. not fond of them!!
Cool way of dispensing draft beer.
Fun way to buy cheese at the street market. And it seems no country refrigerates their eggs except the U.S.!
This place on the sea reminded me of my old apartments I rented out. Nothing fancy, but livable. Poor Jane got the pull-out. But she got the King bed and her own bathroom later that week.
Another fun morning walk to see the flora. Yes, their summers are not hot!