New Zealand: Auckland and Hamilton

We are officially underway and this first post comes from beautiful New Zealand!  After spending 2 great days on the North Island, we've made our way down to Christchurch on the South Island (or Southland as the Kiwis call it).  We were planning on heading out on our camper van adventure today, but have been snowed in in what the news is calling "the storm of a lifetime" that's closed most of the airports and roads.  Right now,  we're sitting by the fire in a beautiful 1905 farm house turned B&B and are making the most of our snow day to do some trip planning and post pics from our time in the North.  Enjoy!

We arrived in Auckland at 5:20 AM (yikes!) on Saturday morning to a city covered in some of the thickest fog I've ever seen. Luckily, we both got a full nights sleep on the flight over thanks to our Air New Zealand business class seats.  After business class, flying in coach will never be quite enough.

Fog at AKL

We picked up our rental car and jumped right in to driving on the "wrong" side of the road.  Besides everything being on the wrong side, most of the roads & highways in NZ are winding, 2 lane roads with a 100 (km/hr) speed limit.  Tony says that being in the passenger's seat for that first ride had to be more terrifying than driving, but I think there's something about oncoming traffic coming at you on the right at high speed that makes your heart skip a beat every time you see head lights coming around a corner but maybe that's just me. :)

What's wrong with this picture?

Tony after riding in the car- the expression says it all

We had a beautiful ride through the countryside to Matamata and visited the farm location of the Hobbiton movie set.  The farm has between 7,000 and 13,000 sheep at any time, but all of the sheep you seen in the movies are shipped in from other areas in New Zealand. It was the movie set was really neat to see, at the same time smaller and bigger than what I expected.  You could tell all of the work they had been doing to rebuild the sets and landscaping for the new movies.  Unfortunately, we  had to sign an agreement saying we wouldn't post any pics until the movies come out in 2012, so you'll just have to take our word for how awesome it was.  

Imagine that over that ridge there is a whole village of hobbits...

Guess the hobbits ran out of the picture...

That's a lot of sheep but no hobbits...

Romney the sheep says "What do you mean I've been typed out for the new movies? You say
I'm too "modern looking"? Seriously, I'm calling my agent!"  

We spent Saturday night at a farmstay outside Hamilton.  It was a quiet farmhouse that felt like a mix of my parents house in Wellington, CO (sprawling ranch style) and my grandparents place in MI (older and full of vintage-y knick knacks).  The town of Hamilton felt like a typical older suburban town that you'd find in the Midwest, but had its quirks as well.  We found this statue of Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show right in the middle of downtown. (Here's a shout out to my Denton Drama Troupe peeps!)

"Frank-n-furter it's all over..."

Outside of its life-size Richard O'Brien, Hamilton's real claim to fame is it's beautiful botanical gardens featuring gardens based on different cultural styles and times.  Since it's winter now, many of the plants were dormant or out of bloom, but the gardens were still beautiful.

Hamilton Gardens

Indian Garden

Chinese Garden

Chinese garden

Tony being Tony

Chinese Garden

Victorian Garden

Feels like David Bowie should appear through the hedges ala Labyrinth

Japanese Garden

Renaissance Garden- it doesn't freeze on most of the North Island so there are citrus and palm trees everywhere.

Maori garden

Does this need a caption?

Productive/Vegetable Garden

Sunday we drove into Auckland and explored the waterfront area. We took a ride up the Sky Tower to get a view of the city and rode the ferry across the the harbor to the town of Devonport for dinner.

Racing boat

Another racing boat....

So, there should be mountains in this pic but they are covered by clouds as the "storm of a lifetime" moves in.

Rainbow over Auckland

Looking across the harbor to Devonport

Hmm.....

On the sidewalk in front of "Monsoon Poon"

On the ferry heading to Devonport

Auckland skyline from across the harbor