Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Uh huh

That horrible wet and windy weekend has cleared and the sun has come out .
We loaded all our stuff back in the camper, left the inlaws place in Auckland and had a nice easy drive through to Hamilton. We arrived at the camp about 2:00pm and had a late lunch before setting up camp.

The rest of the afternoon we sat around and relaxed.
We had decided to put the gazedo up without the sides but as the day went by a cool south west breeze picked up so we added a couple of sides to create a wind break. Temperature for tonight is predicted to be 10°C, which will be far nicer than the stuffy 20°C+, that we have had the last few nights in Auckland.

5th Jan 2016.
This morning we went for a look around the Hamilton gardens. We had been given glowing reports and were not disappointed. This place is fabulous



I will add more to this later.

5th Jan 2016 (continued)
Hamilton Gardens
The Waikato River flows along one side of the gardens.


This is an amazing wood carving in ine of the buildings

If you can enlarge the image on your screen, it is well worth studying the detail.

Hamiltons far from the dump it used to be back in the day.
I remember when i was a kid it was just a place for cow cockies to buy stuff and a gangland
We lived thier briefly when i was a kid when dad was in the army

Hamilton Gardens looks Bea-U-tiful!

S. Heisley wrote:Hamilton Gardens looks Bea-U-tiful!

Yes Sharon it sure is. We only got to see part of it, as having the dogs with us there is about half the place that is no dog zone. And that is the area where most of the specialist gardens are.

dales133 wrote:Hamiltons far from the dump it used to be back in the day.
I remember when i was a kid it was just a place for cow cockies to buy stuff and a gangland
We lived thier briefly when i was a kid when dad was in the army

I expect all cities have their rough areas. I have spent a lot of time over my lifetime staying with family in Hamilton and always found it a very nice place. With the Waikato being one of the top producing farming areas in the country there has always been a lot of related industry which has made it a reasonably affluent place.

I will add more to this when we get home.

5th Jan 2016 (continued )
After lunch we headed out to find this building.
it is now part of a retirement village complex, extending well along both Dawson and Grey Streets.

 "Hiwa Maternity Hospital, on the corner of Dawson and Grey Streets, opened in 1919. The home was run by Mrs Wilhelmina Olsen during the 1930s."
My father was born here in 1927. The amusing part of this story is that my fathers christian name was Dawson (although everyone knew him as Jack), and it is my middle name. His mother had a great imagination.

As always, thanks for sharing! Looks like a great destination!

Thanks KC for the reply.
We have just got back to the camp after another great day, this time in Tirau and Cambridge and the Waikato river in between. Bit late now for a report, will try to do something tomorrow.

Looking forward to it!

6th Jan 2016.
We headed south, taking the newly opened Waikato Expressway, bypassing Cambridge to Tirau.
We had lunch at Poppys Caffè, with the corogated iron poppy on the roof.

We headed back to Cambridge, taking the side roads along the Waikato river.

6th Jan 2016.
We found my cousin in Cambridge, he was back at work early after being hit by the same storm we had been hit by. They had been in Coromandel and had their tent destroyed.
He told us we would have to stay around town this evening, as it was cruise night. The local hot rodders were having a parkup in the main st.
We wandered off for a look around town to fill in a couple of hours, until 6pm.

This is my cousins Chevy.