Saturday, February 20, 2016

New Zealand Day 3: Gardens and Lunch on a Dairy Farm

You wouldn't think that a day that is described as "4-hour bus ride, some walking, home-hosted lunch" would end up being one of the best days of the trip, but it was.

After the usual 6:30am wake-up call, we had our final breakfast in Auckland, and were on the bus by 8am. We rode south to Hamilton, a town with some nice residential areas and the location of some of NZ dairy producer Fronterra's extensive operations. We stopped off at Hamilton Gardens, which our tour guide pointed out was International Garden of the Year 2014. So, it must be good.

It was.

Sweetie and I started out by shuffliling in and out of the various "international" gardens, trying to avoid a family with noisy kids and a variety of obnoxious tourists who lacked manners.We were mostly successful. The international gardens were extraordinary. You were transported to Japan (which of course, made us feel like we hadn't gone anywhere on vacation and were instead back home), China, India, Italy, Great Britain....The gardens were extensive and well-maintained.
Just like home





It was incredible, especially given that admission to the gardens were free.

The international gardens, while extensive, are only a small part of Hamilton Gardens. We also wanted to check out the rose garden. So, we walked over to the rose garden and were blown away by its size. We didn't have a lot of time left -- barely enough to walk quickly to the far end of the garden and then walk quickly back. Definitely worth a repeat visit.

The gigantic rose garden.


 We departed the gardens and headed to lunch with Dot and Ray, who have a dairy farm. It was an unexpected highlight, as we walked into their home and had sandwiches and cake, while chatting with them about their kids (grown up) and the farm. It felt remarkably normal to be having lunch as a group of 15 people in a stranger's home. I chalk that up to Dot and Ray.





The area where they milk the cows was meticulously clean. I felt we could have eaten off the cement floor.

It was already a pretty spectacular day, but we still had a visit to Mangatautari Ecological Island on tap. Mangatautari is NZ's largest ecological island -- it's 3,400 hectares surrounded by a predator-proof fence. The 47 km fence keeps out mammal pests that have been introduced to NZ and that eat the native wildlife. Our guide said we would notice a dramatic difference in quantity of bird life as soon as we stepped through the fence, but all we saw was a one-legged pigeon (see below).



The elusive one-legged pigeon
Our entire group managed to climb up the stairs to the observation platform, which our guide said was a first for him as a tour guide. Go us!

I didn't really care that we didn't see many birds, because this was the first walk I'd taken in the woods IN MY ENTIRE LIFE where I wasn't eaten alive by mosquitoes. It was weird. I asked where the mosquitoes were and our guide said it was dry, so there weren't any. Personally, I think they bug bomb the entire 3,400 hectares. But I'm okay with that.

From there, we went to Rotorua, or Roto Vegas as the locals call it. Our hotel was lakeside, though the weather was not all that fantastic. Drizzly. We had dinner as a group at the hotel that night, and I felt bad for all the other people in the hotel having dinner. Our group was a bit rowdy. Our group was that group of 15 people who are all seated at one table, making a ruckus like they're on vacation or are hard of hearing, or both, and had had too many glasses of wine.

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