2/18 – 2/21 Hamilton and Cambridge
2/18 – We arrived at our rental house (the “Pool House”) around 3:00, after taking a detour into Cambridge for groceries. The house is cute – a little one-bedroom, right beside a lovely built-in swimming pool (shared with the owners). After a quick snack of samosas that were purchased at the Countdown deli, we decided to chill by the pool for a couple of hours and read our books. Dinner tonight was burgers and pesto pasta salad. We ate only ½ of each burger, so leftovers tomorrow! Also, a highlight of the evening was that we finally saw a wild animal – three bunnies in the garden!
2/19 – Today we explored Hamilton. First, we went to the Classics Museum – as in classic cars and memorabilia. It was really nicely done, and we enjoyed an hour touring the various exhibits. My favorite was a 1915 Excelsior motorbike with a gorgeous, covered sidecar and a picnic basket on the back! Mark really enjoyed all of the memorabilia including the spark plug display, the wide variety of oil cans, and the range of bonnet (hood) ornaments.
Later in the afternoon, we went to Hamilton Gardens. It was one of the most unusual gardens we have ever visited. Each garden – Italian Renaissance, English Garden, Japanese Garden of Contemplation, Chinese Scholars, Indian Char Bagh …, was very different and beautiful in its own way. We spent almost an hour and a half walking through the greenery and appreciating the sunny day.
Dinner was chicken and vegetables; we also enjoyed an appetizer of duck confit. We haven’t been able to find that since we lived in San Francisco more than ten years ago.
2/20 – We headed to the coast today – out to Raglan, which has a bohemian / surf culture feel to it. We read that we had to have fish and chips at the Wharf, so that is the first place we headed. The food was quite good, but the location right on the water was phenomenal. After our late lunch, we went for a short walk down to the wharf area at the end of the road – boat ramp, fishing pier and a few artisan shops.
We left Raglan and made the 13 km detour to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a great walk down to the falls – about 0.8 miles and 265 stairs. Of course, the walk back up was a little more difficult! Even though Raglan is only about 70 km from our rental property, we were gone about six hours today – guess we lingered over lunch!
It was after six o’clock when we returned and it was wine time! Dinner was pasta with burst tomato sauce and shrimp. One of our best efforts, if we have to say so ourselves.
2/21 – Checkout from the Pool House wasn’t until 11:00, so we had a leisurely morning and then made our way into Cambridge in search of brunch. We tried two different bakeries, but we were looking for something more substantial than a donut or pastry. We found an awesome deli that served breakfast until 2:00 and had a really good variety of food. We ordered a BLT bagel and the special of the day, which was potato gratin with bacon and a poached egg covered in Hollandaise sauce. Both were incredibly delicious, but the potato gratin was outstanding! The bacon was piled on – sure our cholesterol is off the charts!! We lingered in town for a bit and then headed north on State Highway 1 to Auckland.
2/21 – 2/24 Auckland
2/21 – We made really good time on the highway and were at the hotel by 2:20. Check-in was supposed to be at 3:00, but fortunately, we got the access codes early and were able to get into the apartment. It’s funny, because when we were booking the apartment, we thought it looked really nice – updated kitchen and bath, and nicely decorated. And, when we looked at the view, we thought that it had to be in the same vicinity as the Sebel Hotel at Viaduct Harbour. Well, it turns out it is the Sebel Hotel at Viaduct Harbour! Apparently, some units are privately owned and we are lucky enough to be staying in one. So, we have literally come full circle from our arrival in New Zealand four weeks ago; we are even on the same floor of the hotel!!
Dinner tonight was leftover pasta and shrimp with burst tomato sauce. It was just as yummy the second time around! Particularly, as we enjoyed a sailboat regatta!
2/22 – We did pretty much nothing all day. We were decompressing from our whirlwind tour of the North Island but we did walk along the harbour front this afternoon and stopped for lunch at a small restaurant that advertised NZD 6 beers and NZD 16 sandwiches (burgers or chicken). We opted for the chicken sandwich and a side of onion rings (both to share); we also picked the Speight’s (New Zealand) golden ale. Everything was good and we enjoyed people watching as we ate. There were two cruise ships in port today (Coral Princess and ms Noordam); both are enormous with about 2,400 passengers each, so there were plenty of people going by.
In the evening, we hung out on our balcony and continued to people watch. There was a party of some type (wedding?) and there were numerous men in tuxes and suits and women in gowns. It was quite pretty! We are definitely creatures of habit and we decided on Thai from the stall across the street for dinner. It was really good – again!
2/23 – Checkout was 10:00 this morning, and we literally left the apartment at 9:59. I took a few last pictures of the Giraffe / giraffe and the flowers at Soul on our way out. Also, I forgot to mention in my prior post that we had neglected to make a reservation to park with Stay Ltd (property manager of the apartment), so we had to park in a public car park about a block away. Access was very easy, but we were a bit concerned about the ability to exit since we weren’t sure if we would be able to use a credit card. It was fine in the end – all is well that ends well!
We didn’t have far to go to our next hotel, so we decided to make a detour to Hunua Falls. We learned that there are two sections of the Hunua Ranges Regional Park since the GPS wanted to route us to the part that was furthest away. Fortunately, we saw signs for the falls and followed those as opposed to our GPS. Think we probably saved at least an hour of backtracking. Anyway, although not as dramatic as some of the other falls we have seen, it was a nice way to spend the morning / early afternoon.
We got to the hotel around 1:00 but check in wasn’t until 2:00 so we parked and walked around the corner to a café, where we had toasties (think grilled cheese) for lunch with coffee. We gassed up the car for the last time and made our way back to the hotel. We are only about 10 km from the airport so it should be a quick trip in the morning. While we were out getting gas, we stopped by the Pak n Save and got cajun pork chops and potato salad for our final dinner on the North Island. We also did some laundry – pretty much everything in our bags is now clean. No traveling with dirty laundry for us!
2/24 – Our flight to Christchurch was at 1:00 this afternoon so we got to sleep late and enjoy our coffee before we had to leave for the airport. Even so, we were early since it didn’t take us as long as we expected and turning in the car was also much faster than we had planned for. We were so early, in fact, that our flight wasn’t open for check-in when we arrived. We sat and waited for about a half hour and tried once again to check our bags. This time we were successful and after dropping our bags, we made our way through security and to the gate area.
The boarding process was really interesting. Premier fliers were welcomed first, followed by everyone else on the plane. Those seated in rows 1-15 (we were in row 11, exit row) boarded via the jet bridge and others boarded via the tarmac to the stairs at the back of the aircraft. It all worked, and we were soon on our way.