Hamilton Gardens with Patty

On Wednesday, Patty arrived for a visit! Yay!

She flew into Auckland Airport, so I drove up to meet her. Unfortunately, her flight from Fiji was delayed by over four hours, so I spent a lot of the day in a cafe near the airport reading my book. Ordinarily, I like spending four or five hours reading my book, but I do not like waiting, and was eager to actually get to see Patty, so it wasn't as pleasant as it could otherwise have been. Anyway, I finally picked her up, and we had great conversations throughout the drive to Hamilton, checking into our beautiful, classic hotel, and having a lovely dinner at a little Indian restaurant downtown.

The next day, we went to the Hamilton Gardens, because Patty had seen my pictures and decided that she definitely wanted to go there. It worked out well, because Hamilton is only 1.5 hours from Auckland Airport (as compared to our house, which is five hours away), and is kind of on the way home, so all the travel coincided helpfully.

Patty has a fancy new camera that Mom gave her for Christmas, and so was really enjoying taking pictures of the multitudes of stunning flowers throughout the gardens. This had not been my focus when I went with J, but I quite enjoyed taking some flowery pictures with her this time.

These are in the Indian Char Bagh section. That whole area is comprised of delightful splashes of colour.

I had forgotten, until we stumbled upon these, that I used to really like Tiger Lilies! And no wonder.

I realize that these are not flowers, but I love the dark, shiny leaves!

We discovered this rather fascinatingly mutated flower, the middle of which had grown so oblong that it started curving around the top of the stem, making it seem as though it was growing a flower out of both sides. We loved it!

When this flower mutated, it transformed into a happy hybrid between flower, bumblebee, and butterfly!

The rose gardens had not been impressive last time we were there, but they were stunning this time. I love this rose, the colouring of which makes it look like it has been acid washed or something. (I don't find acid wash a particularly nice look in jeans, but it quite suits this flower!)

Yellow roses are my favourite, and I particularly liked this set of four, because it shows a closed bud, a just barely opening bud, a full flower, and a slightly overblown flower - a whole yellow rose cycle in one cluster!

I am, recently, liking deep colours in plants, which I think is a new thing for me.

Here ends the flower section, and here begins the "other cool stuff in the gardens" section.

These are in the Māori Parapara part of the gardens, and I must not have noticed them last time, because I think that they are interesting and quite beautiful.

This is part of the wonderfully huge zen sand garden in the Japanese section. I saw them last time, and was not particularly impressed, but this time I was drawn to the island of moss in the sand, with its own islands of rock within it.

In the Chinese garden, I delighted to discover that this little island over the bridge (not really an island, but it feels like one) is called The Island of Whispering Birds.

Last time we were hear, the American Modernist Garden wasn't open yet, but this time it was. It is based on California-style modernist fancy houses, as far as I can figure out. I'm not sure how many massive succulents are in that particular part of the world, but they were really cool here!

I loved this pool, with the strange, white sculpture in it. This is probably a bad reflection on my sophistication, but it looks like Pokemon to me.

 We met my friend Jenny for morning tea at the nice little cafe in the gardens, and then went to a fabulous sushi place for lunch, before heading back to New Plymouth. I was very proud to show Patty the beautiful countryside between Hamilton and New Plymouth, and she was suitably impressed and appreciative, so that was lovely.

We have had a great start to her visit, and I anticipate lots more fun and excellent stories to share, so stay tuned.