A happy Hamilton day

We had a good night's rest and a leisurely morning doing laundry and working on the photos from the previous two days. Then we spent the afternoon at Hamilton Gardens, which you'll see from the website is a pretty fine place. 

    It's actually a garden of gardens, and one can quickly see the different styles and compare Chinese, Japanese, English, Italian, Indian, and a few others. There's an excellent Maori garden too, with fine carved wooden tikis. 

    We got home in time to help make the dumplings for dinner, and after dinner we played Mah Jong - for the first time, really. We'd learned something about it from a friend and tenant years ago, but this time they sat us down at the table as players and immersed us in the game, keeping the instructions flowing until it began to make sense to us. 

    Our hosts have been really great. Our Hamilton photo album includes a photo of the whole gang who were here for supper. I tried to restrain myself this time, but the other photos, of course, are of gardens: Italian, Maori, a rose garden, etc...and dumplings. 

    We'll cruise into Auckland tomorrow. We'll wash the car, return it to the depot by 0900 hours the following morning (so I might deliver it the evening before, actually), and then rely on public transit in Auckland for the final three days.

Next post: Return to Aukland.