Hamilton Gardens, Waikato, New ZealandHamilton
Disaster strikes
Last evening when Paul took out his dentures, they broke in
half, what to do next. The good part is tomorrow we are heading to Hamilton and
we stick around the area for 2 days – and Hamilton is big. So, we did look up
and discovered they have a Dental Emergency center which does walk-ins and same
day repair as they have an on-site Lab. Maybe not all is lost. That means:
Early start and Traffic Jam in Auckland
Again, we get up at 7 o’clock and make a coffee for the road
able to head out before 8 am – plan is that the drive is 1.5 hrs – haha, not in
Auckland. We came through Traffic jam #1 and then Traffic Jam #2 (which was
holding us up for nearly 45 Min) – guess that happens when there is only one
bridge to go over and if you are in the largest city in New Zealand. We did make
it through Auckland – but it took us 1.5 hrs (instead of the hopefully 20 Min).
I do have to say we did have some nice views on downtown. From here on, it was
a smooth and easy ride to Hamilton and we arrived close to 11 am:
At the Dental Emergency center
They are super nice and one of the Techs came and checked
with us, and yes they can do it, we can pick it up this afternoon – we are so
happy!!!! No problem we will spend the day in Hamilton. First, we need
something to eat (easy to eat): we head to McDonalds and get another coffee and
some French fries – and already discovered that Downtown Hamilton with all its
traffic and parking garages is not for us!!!
Hamilton – the big city:
- The big city is not on the ocean – that is because in the 1850s the European came here and introduced fruits and vegetables to the fertile land, they grew here nearly all the food which got send to Auckland
- In 1863 the Waikato War started, after it the British confiscated over 3600 sqkm of land and gave it to the colonial soldiers to farm and to defend
- It was only in 1995 that the Waikato tribes received a full crown apology for the wrongful invasion and confiscation of their land as well as a 170 Mill$ package which included all the land that the crown still owned
- In 1864 the city got named after a British Captain John Charles Fane Hamilton who got killed in the Battle of Gate Pa in Tauranga - the Maori call Hamilton: Waikato
- The big city of 170.000 people is along the Waikato River even the town kind of ignores this
The classics Museum
What do you do if you have a few hours in Hamilton, Gine
said we first go to the car museum and then to the gardens. So far, we haven’t
visited a car museum in New Zealand (we skipped the Packard Museum, and the
Matthew Vintage Car Museum was closed) – it is really time to go to one. This
one is like a 50s-Museum – once you arrive at the parking lot you see a huge
50s Jukebox and you walk into a 50s dinner with black/white checkered floor and
the cool typical tables and chairs – yes with Elvis on the wall too!!! A little
bar made of a Chevy – super cute.
From here through the dinner, we go inside and you get
flooded with the music and the colors of the 50s, and there are not only cars,
there is a lot from the old times like gas stations, signs, old oil bottles,
toys, scooter and bicycles. And what was super cool, there were a few we
haven’t seen before. It was also two-level so it was a lot of fun to look down
on all the cars and only to enjoy the ambiente, so what were our highlights:
- Let’s start with life in the 50s: some old radios, old cameras, old toys (like a super cute pink tricycle), old picnic baskets
- Paul’s favorite is a Buick Skylark Series 100 from 1954 – he said those are super rare cars and only 836 got made: today there are only 80 left in the world (2 in NZ)
- Gine’s favorite was a Auburn – I think it looks super sleek, even it was from 1936 it already had 150 hp and could do 100 miles an hour – what a cool car!!
- The red Texaco tanker: that is such a super cool truck – and they showed pictures on how they found it in 2018 and on how they restored it to its beauty it is today
- Cars we normally don’t see that often like the sunbeam Rapier, Vespa car (I didn’t know they make cars – it is super cute and tiny), some small Fiats and Triumph’s, or how about a little Isetta which pulls a trailer (yes that is possible), there was also a Studebaker from 1951 (now who is in better shape the car or Paul????), or a Lancia Flavia coupe from 1964, I never heard of a Borgward Isabella 1957 (but it looks also super cool), how about a Hillman?, Bristol 1950 this is another one of those sleek rare cars, We know Fords but how about a Ford Perfect 100 E a tiny little car, or the cute little Herald, several Morris’s (they are kind of small and cute too)
- Cord from 1937 (it was a front wheel drive, not normal in that time and they only made them for 2 years, altogether only 1570 were made
- Messerschmidt 1959, KR 200: those cars were designed by an aircraft engineer and made in the former Aircraft company in Regensburg/Germany. They made those from 1955-1966. KR means cabin scooter (Kabinenroller), it didn’t go that fast the 2-stroke only did 10 HP
- Goggomobil: that is a car built from 1957-67, they were designed and built by Hans Glass – and it is another small car like the Velocar Mochet Lux which got built from 1951-53
- Haflinger, now that is a unique small light weight four-wheel drive vehicle, this is an Australian vehicle made from 1959-74 by Steyer-Puch and they got sold all over the world, 7000 alone got sold to the Military
- All the oils from Castrol, Texado, Mobil and Shell – and I didn’t know there was a pump caller Europa at one time or how about the Atlantic oil
- It was fun to look into the Big Tree Garage – a real old-fashioned garage with old tools and the hoist was a iron chain to pull up the car. This chain was the earliest privately owned service station and they operated in NZ from 1910-1950
- The car collection of the Model cars… I think we should also have a mirror for underneath the cars
- We also loved the cool car-benches – yes one of those ones would be awesome for us, at least here we could sit down to relax a bit
Not Question: we had fun!!! Oh, and when later I was reading
all the weird car names – I discovered there are a lot I didn’t know.
Hamilton Gardens
Gine read about the Hamilton Gardens – and this is a huge
Park area – we don’t have time to see all, but what sounded super interesting
is the Enclosed gardens: this is where we went and we checked them all(!!) out
– each one is unique and each one is amazingly made – there are several ones
that could be our favorites, we went from garden to garden with short stops in
courts and plazas we saw them all some were great, some were simply super
amazing: from Paradise to Fantasy – so what did we all discover:
- English Flower Garden: like they were around 1900, simple with walls and hedges and little outdoor sitting, nicely done
- Chinese Garden: we went through a gate with lions, cool Moon gates, bamboo and nice bridges, a Pagoda to walk up to through a huge Bamboo Forest (that was cool). Did you know that traditional Chinese gardens are one of the oldest arts in the world – sometimes they are called the mother of the gardens? They inspire imagination, story telling, fantasy and surprise. It is a winding journey to reach the Pavilion – the garden here is like in the Sung dynasty around 10th century
- Modernist Garden: very nice and modern and sleek with a white sparkling abstract scultpure– that is how our backyard should be (maintenance free and modern) – that is when the pool came and the strict garden went away
- Indian Char Bagh Garden: this one is a highlight with the cool white Indian gate on one side and the fountains between colorful flowers –we learned that this kind of garden is typical for Muslim worlds , as Genghis Khan moved East towards India he brought the Islam to India, the focus is on water with geometric and strong symmetry designs – they are secret pleasure gardens with perfumes of flowers in a living Persian carpet
- Italian Renaissance Garden: you walk in it and you look at that Italian style house with gorgeous fountains you feel like you are in a fairy tale, we came to the Romus & Remulus fountain, from there to the Piazza from where we went into more gardens (good thing we have a downloaded map otherwise we would be lost and the maps here cost money. You can see the Arab influence given a Christian interpretation. Geometry as a reflection of divine and cosmic order – they try to find this in nature
- Japanese Garden of Contemplation: stones on nice rocks nearly no plants – the interpretation is you. A huge covered patio overlooking the water, this garden is designed for peaceful refuge a Zen garden, a movement without a movement
- Tropical Garden: through the tropics – lots of palm trees and we feel like we are on vacation, this garden is created from a different climate something we dream about – exotic plants like bromeliads, orchids,
- Surrealist Garden: this is one of the most amazing gardens – we walked in and you see those kinds of hands overgrown with ivy sticking up, when looking closely we hear and see them moving, but most amazing is the huge door (you feel like a dwarf) or the gigantic garden tools. What is Surrealism: it is a strange world, where dreams come true, in the 1920s artists were fascinated with the irrational and provocative, they were inspired by Sigmund Freud and tried to interpret the mysterious world of dreams and the subconscious mind: it’s like the distortion of the scale, surrealistic sculptures,
- Herb and Kitchen garden: Gine said that sounds boring let’s go through fast – but here you can smell the gardens and they have beautiful flowers – we didn’t know that those practical gardens can be so beautiful – they are designed to make gardening more appealing. By the way an herb is a useful plant you can use for food, flavoring, medicine, disinfection, pesticide, perfume, poison, narcotics or hallucinogens. Only in the 18th century plants which got used for food were called vegetables.
- Ancient Egyptian Garden: you walk into another fairy tale garden – yes, another one of my favorites, even before entering we can see the Egyptian symbols on the wall and we walk in and we can start reading (or not) all the Egyptian stories on the walls – and no we can’t understand all those hieroglyphs – by the way in Egypt the gardens were made to prepare for dangerous journeys like into the afterlife: temples and gardens are meeting places between heaven and earth and the underworld. The garden we are in is based on a typical temple from the Middle kingdom period (2040 BC)
- Mansfield Garden: that is when you see a house which is not real, it is like a 20th century NZ garden like Kathryn Mansfield writes in her story (she was a NZ pioneer in modern literature) – come back to 1922 the Edwardian period- and yes there is even an old Ford Model T car.
- Picturesque Garden: let’s become romantic, it was a movement in England to the change attitude to nature, no more formal – they made artificially aged structures – those gardens not only appeal to the eye but also to the mind and heart (yes we became also very romantic) – because there is a theme of a legend or fantasy story, here the fairy tale is the magic: flute of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (ok I couldn’t figure that out), they make reference to the site they were placed with strong empathetic forms. By the way we walked through the gate of Wisdom!!!! (I wonder if we are now wiser)
- Concept Garden: those kind of gardens are not natural, practical or attractive (I disagree – I liked it a lot), This garden is inspired by two Maori whakataukii and map legends: square boxes with different colors and texture denoting the different land use: you can see 9 squares – the description on the wall means “the human family lives on while the branch of the tickoti falls and decays” and “a man disappears from sight, the land remains”, here is also a Huddleston Airship gliding throught he night delivering plants
- Tudor Garden: some gardens blow our mind more – and this is one of them, you come in and see the painted columns with the knights’ symbols on top and we feel like we are in an old knight’s world. Those kind of gardens are from the 16th century with geometric features and symbols having a double meaning – once we know it and look at it we can see the knot made of the greenery – by the way none of the original Tudor gardens survived. Can you see the figures of William Shakespear’s comedy – like the dragon, centaur, phoenix, unicorn, satyr and sea serpent???
- Chinoiserie Garden: ok, a quick glance in and out – this is a European garden with Chinese influence, that is when the Europeans started to import from the orient – it is a reinvented European Chinese and Japanese art – like the little Chinese house one like it was built in 1738 in England
- Te Parapara Garden: is the last one we walk through a Maori based garden, we walk in alongside a palisade (like we know from the PA’s) inside we see a Marae sitting high up, lots of the Maori statues around it – the plants are on how the Maori planted them – by the way Te Parapara was the original name of the settlement for this place. At this place they had a sacred altar (Tuahu) – it is absolutely stunning and beautiful – especially being here in NZ.
We walked a lot and saw some beautiful gardens – how amazing
and did I mention sometimes you are in a plaza and there are doors going in
each direction each one leading you to another garden….. As we head back, we
realized we missed the phone call from the dental center and we can pick up the
dentures!!! We are so happy!!!!
Ready to head for Raglan
It is time to leave the city and head over yes more curvy
roads in high speed (because I think we have some locals in front of us)
towards the coast… very scenic. Self-check-in to our nice little ground floor
place with a gorgeous patio out back – a cup of coffee to relax to come down
from all the stress – some shopping (no it is not a very big supermarket) but
we don’t want to drive or go anywhere anymore today. A quick walk down towards
the ocean. Supper outside on the gorgeous picnic tables and we need a nice and
relaxing evening. Did I mention it is super hot and our room is super hot too –
so we open front and back door as a natural AC???
I think tomorrow we have to relax.
2025-05-23