We are in the final days of our trip to down under and are making our way to Auckland to meet up with my cousin, Corinne and her husband Paul. It has been many years since I have seen her so it will be lovely to reminisce with her.
We decided to do some sightseeing on the way to Auckland so I headed off to the Hamilton Botanical Garden and Gary to a car museum.
What made this Car Museum very different was it also had a lot of old garage memorabilia, including hand powered pumps and lubricant displays. Of course, there were many early New Zealand automobiles including several manufactured by the "All Day" Company, that Gary had never heard of.
On the drive to Hamilton we passed through a small town with an unusual shop facade. Can you guess what the shop was selling? Woolen articles from the Merino sheep.
Hamilton Gardens were really nice and, again free. That has been a real nice treat to see all these lovely gardens without paying an admission fee. The garden was arranged by styles and countries. The photos below depict India.
The next garden is a Renaissance Italian Garden.
And I forgotten where the lower garden is supposed to be!!!
The next photo depicts a Tudor English garden.
The garden was holding a scarecrow competition. Some of them were quite imaginative.
I was treated to the sound of bagpipes preparing for a Scottish Band Competition.
Unfortunately for me, my memory card ran out of space so I was unable to take photos of the rest of the gardens. Maybe, that is fortunate for you!!
We finally arrived in Auckland for a 3 day stay enabling me to visit with my cousin and see the sights. The first sight we saw upon entering Auckland was the Sky Tower. This amazing tower was built in 1997 and is a telecommunications and observation tower. It is 728.3ft tall and often is lit up on a night to represent special occasions - pink, Breast Cancer Awareness, red and green, Christmas etc.. It was not lit up for any of our stay. We did go up it on our last day in Auckland. Those photos are to follow.
In the harbour we saw a nice looking sail boat.
Views of the city from the ferry at Bayview, where we stayed.
We met up with Corinne and her husband and they kindly showed us the sights of their lovely city. The first stop was to some greenhouses in downtown Auckland.
It was really nice to be able to identify many of the flowers.
The next stop took us to a monument at Bastion Point overlooking the city. The monument was to Auckland's first Labour Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage.
Corinne and Paul.
Auckland is surrounded by 48 volcanoes. The above photo shows just one of them.
After a lovely visit with Corinne and Paul we were left to our own devices to explore Auckland. We decided we had to go up the Tower to see the view of the surrounding area.
The above photo shows the shell of the burned out Convention Centre which caught fire a couple of weeks ago and totally destroyed the building. It was in the final stages of being constructed when someone left a blowtorch on and it set fire to the roof. The fire took several days to put out and made the national headlines.
Looking down the elevator shaft.
Our final photo taken in New Zealand as we said farewell to Auckland.
Well, the trip is over. Dear Gary did all the driving for which I offer my sincere thanks. My thanks also go to Corinne and Paul for the time they spent with us.
It has been a lovely trip. I never saw a kiwi and my tooth never gave me any more problems. I think what I enjoyed the most was the play "Tuesdays with Maurie" in Cairns, The Great Barrier Reef and Heron Island and the unbelievable scenery on the South Island of New Zealand. They will remain in my memory forever, I hope.
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