Cambridge and Hamilton

Anne here…

Leaving Rotorua and, based on good advice, we called into Punnets cafe on the outskirts of Cambridge for a local favourite: berries whisked into vanilla ice-cream… mmm… delish!

Cambridge is wealthy and horsey; lots of stud farms; large bungalows with well manicured lawns and is a fruit growing area. It’s very pleasant.

Hamilton is a modern multi-cultural city – the fourth largest in New Zealand. And it also made a good impression, slightly contrary to our expectations.

Here is the view from our Novotel hotel room window. The river was very full and is a key feature through the city.

But it was definitely Hamilton Gardens that completely stole the show for me.
It was so good we did it twice! Well that’s not strictly true. We saw five themed gardens on Saturday but it suddenly started pouring with rain, perhaps appropriately when we were in the tropical garden, so heavily that we had to abandon our visit. But I loved it so much, I was really keen to go back this morning – a really lovely way to spend Easter Sunday morning. I enjoyed the themed gardens so much they get a blog post all of their own…