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Caves, Glowworms, Ziplines!

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  Our last few days in New Zealand saw us spending a wonderful  afternoon/evening/morning with people from JT's past, seeing glowworms in caves and zip-lining! The side story on JT's friends:  JT grew up in Frobisher Bay, North West Territories (now Iqaluit, Nunavut Territory).  He and Tuck Jackson went to school together there.  Tuck has been living in New Zealand for about 35 years now!  In previous lives JT and Tuck were brother-in-laws!  Fast forward to now, Tuck and his x, Debi Lewis, both live in the Auckland area now and are good friends now (their son Palmer also lives in Auckland).  Debi and her partner, Howard, have a beautiful home in the suburb of Hillcrest that they have had for 21 years now.  On Monday we headed north from Hamilton to Hillcrest.  An easy drive of about 130km, which took us about 1hour 40minutes (travel time increases as you near Auckland!)  We pulled up and we were greeted by Debi and Howard's dog, a 1...
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Hobbiton!

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  1st publication 1937 Dust Jacket artist : Tolkien!  I'm pretty sure that most people out there are familiar with JRR Tolkien 's works.  So we could not call our visit to the north island of New Zealand complete without a visit to the only spot on earth that can be called "Middle Earth"!  For superfans, check out the noted link! The Hobbiton movie set  is located near Matamata, about a 2 hour drive from central Auckland, about 45 minutes from our location in Hamilton.  As we traveled along the terrain it became more and more what I had imagined The Shire would look like!  Fun fact: Peter Jackson chose this location for Hobbiton while flying over the area searching for the perfect spot and the Alexander Sheep farm was it!  The two principals have come up with an awesome partnership to preserve this piece of fantasy envisioned by Tolkien! Although, as you will see from my little slideshow of our photos, we got a taste of fall on the North Isla...
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Hamilton!

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Monday (April 17), we began our "Hamilton" phase of our trip.  We are staying in an awesome VRBO ( 12 Portal Crescent, Hamilton, NZ ).   The kitchen got the stamp of approval from Munchie!  Some people visit zen like gardens full of tranquil auras to get to their happy place, for my Darling Bride, its being in a kitchen creating gastronomic delights for others!  And when she gets to her happy place, I reap the benefits and eat like a king! Our wonderful little Hamilton home! On Tuesday we went to the Hamilton Gardens .  Quite an impressive and free local attraction.  Although we were told that the free admission may be coming to an end.  The gardens would obviously require constant care and this always comes at a price, so it stands to reason with the cost of everything always going up, companies  have to explore all revenue streams to keep afloat.  The many different and diverse "collections" offered a pleasant afternoon.  We even ...
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Auckland in April!

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Our trip to New Zealand came about this past fall.  We had returned from our stay in southern  Spain  (my link to my Spain blogg) and were talking with our friends, the Turgeons, JT and Shannon.  Shannon was talking about their trip to New Zealand to participate in the  International Breast Cancer Dragon Boat  festival in April 2023.  As a bit of a joke Shannon said since we were almost halfway there in Kauai why don't we join them in New Zealand.  It sounded like a good plan, so without hesitation we said we would!  We had attended the previous International Festival in 2018 in Florence,  Italy  .  Last year Shannon took on the presidency of  Edmonton club  and has been heavily involved in her local club as well as nationally and internationally.  Checkout this  link  regarding the founding and evolution of courageous paddlers!  We said goodbye to Kauai on the morning of April 5th and after a quic...
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