Botanical Garden
Hamilton, New Zealand - Day 1
Katie and I have been dreaming of our New Zealand adventure for so long that it is kind of surreal that we actually made it here (That or its the jet lag...). The flights were long and luckily uneventful. One interesting bit of traveling trivia was that after we landed and grabbed our bags, we actually had to go through another bag check to leave the airport. New Zealand is very serious about its Bio-security and the extra check was to make sure that nothing was coming into the country that could significantly affect the health of plants, animals, and its people. We were mostly in the clear with the stuff we brought, but did have to discuss our hiking shoes. Fortunately ours were clean enough and we were allowed to keep them.
As per usual, the first thing we did was grab our car. It turned out to be a grey Toyota Yaris, 5 speed manual, right hand drive. I have driven on right side of the car, left side of the road before in Ireland and the UK, but I have to admit it was a lot more disorienting than I thought it was going to be. The darn turn signal and wipers were switched around! So not only was I going slow because of everything else...but when I would try to indicate I would turn the wipers on. Didn't cause any accident though and Katie and I had a pretty good laugh about it.
Our first accommodation (which also happens to be our first AirBnB ever), was about an hour and a half drive south west, outside of Hamilton. We drove straight there and we checked in and got unpacked. Since I had no idea how jet lagged we would be, I left this day pretty much fully unplanned. After getting settled, we went back out to explore and ended up having a delicious lunch at The Helm and a very enjoyable stroll through Hamilton Gardens. The gardens were split up into themes, from a Japanese rock garden to an Italian renaissance garden. There was also an event going on, Gourmet in the Gardens, which brought food trucks and musicians to an area adjacent to the gardens. They all smelled delicious and we got a fresh strawberry ice cream from one of them.
