NZ 2019 - Exploring Hamilton (Day 4 of 15)

***The following is the account of the first-person-view from Edwin Ang.***

Today I woke up at 8am but snoozed till 10am because I was really tired. Endured some retard's snoring the entire night. Halfway through the night I plugged in my earpiece, played some music and then the next moment it was 8am. I realised the room is pretty shit, beds are small and room is stuffy. It was a really bad hostel experience.

By morning that retard was gone so I can never ever put a face to the snore. Today I aimed to either visit the Rail Trail or the Hamilton Gardens. Based on a friend's recommendation on Facebook, I headed towards the gardens. Wanted to have breakfast at Hamilton Central but wasn't hungry so I skipped it. The walk to the gardens is literally 4.9km. And I took close to 2 hours, stopping often to rest and to find my direction.

The walk beside Waikato River was great as ever. Flow of water rushing coupled with serenading music in my ears... Finally reached Hamilton Gardens with the sun shining bright!!!

Stopped by a large pond just outside of the gardens to enjoy the view and chat with a single mother there. She is going to migrate here soon and she's sharing the joy of it. I hope one day I can do the same too!

So I headed straight into the Gardens. It is made up of many different kinds of smaller gardens smashed into one whole big mix. The biggest variety is the mix of different cultural gardens. A lot of styles are there so that's a lot to see.

There's Japanese, Chinese, Italian and French gardens. So cool to explore and walk around in this beautiful weather!

This red hut house is from the old New Zealand days where the Maori tribes formed much of New Zealand's population. Maori's language is one of the main languages the locals still use even until today.

The sights were pretty amazing too, given its prime location beside the Waikato River. Almost every garden uses the river as a backdrop or a balcony view. There are a few solo shots which will look stunning as my future display pictures! Simply wonderful!

Then there were smaller gardens from different eras. The first picture below shows a typical garden from the 1990s while the next picture is of me and my scarecrow friend!

Headed out when the skies looked particularly dark. Needed to walk back so couldn't take the risk. It was 2 hours to walk here so 2 hours to walk back. Took another route that led me onto this small street where I had Subway footlong for lunch. Couldn't really find anything else.

It was NZD12.10 for a footlong, which I thought was pretty crazy compared to Singapore. Anyway, I was hungry so I didn't think so much back at that time. While I was eating, the rain got "big". What New Zealanders mean by "big" is a stronger drizzle. So it's not too bad that I can't walk back to my hostel. Spent a majority bulk of the afternoon taking a nap because walking makes me unknowingly tired too!

Lazed around in bed all night talking to the other roommates. Turns out that most of them are locals that have just been kicked out of their own homes. Okay cool. Shared a lot of Singapore's culture with them! Skipped dinner because I just wasn't feeling it. Overall, Hamilton is great but there aren't a lot of attractions that are possible to reach by foot. Up next, Rotorua!!!

Click here for Day 5!