Week 1 - Day 5 - Off to Hamilton

On the way to Hamilton we pass this hill. It is huge, almost a mini-mountain. It is Alan's favourite spot.

This is another view out the back seat of the car! The hills are quite spectacular.

We are off to Hamilton to see the gardens and to the Maori Museum. Oh, and it is raining again, but the temperature has warmed up.

The gardens are quite impressive. We only saw a portion of the gardens as spring has only just arrived. Our favourite part of the garden was this section of the Chinese garden.

The price of Shell gas is much better in Ontario even with the exchange rate!

I just noticed that the date is wrong above each post. That is Ontario's date, we are actually a day ahead here...time travel at its finest!

Week 1 - Day 4 - Another Rainy Day

We are having a lazy morning as it is very rainy.

Alan and Peter went to town to use a phone to book accommodation for next week. We will be on the east coast next. I found an interesting place to stay called the Carlton Thermal Retreat. Here we have our own personal thermal pool! Luckily the boys were successful booking the place.


I plan on staying home today as it is bucketing rain to try and work with the internet.

On our travels the past few days we saw many interesting trees. My favourite looks like a fern ontop of a tree trunk. It is quite beautiful.

These fronds, before they open are the size of Alan's fist.

Another interesting place I forgot to mention is the black sand at Repuke Bay. The sand is black and it sparkles. It was quite interesting.

Week 1 - Day 3 - Glow Worm Caves

We had an amazing experience at the Waitomo Caves. It was quite exciting to see this cave. We walked through this amazing cave, then took a short boat ride in the darkness to see the glow worms. It was beautiful.

Glow Worms in Cave. Glow Worms

Unfortunately it was still raining when we left and continued to rain all day. We found a coffee shop called the "Clockwork Cafe." There was an unbelievable amount of clocks in the shop adjacent to the cafe. Good coffee and interesting shop.