New Zealand Temple and Hamilton Gardens

New Zealand Temple

We wanted to see the New Zealand Temple but it was closed on Saturday when we got there, so we went to the 10:00 a.m. session on Tuesday.  We took the back roads on a beautiful morning. 

When we turned a corner, suddenly the temple appeared! 

The temple was dedicated in 1958, so it was somewhat reminiscent of the Oakland Temple with clean, modern lines.  In the celestial room, there were pastel murals of New Zealand on the walls.   It is a beautiful temple.  After the session, we got a small tour on the way down to the cafeteria.  We saw the baptismal font and sealing rooms.  It was so gorgeous.  

As we were eating, we noticed  some bottles in the cooler that looked like beer.  Jerry finally could not contain his curiosity and discovered that it was ginger beer--non alcoholic, of course.  We later bought some and it is somewhat similar to ginger ale, only stronger.  (The New Zealanders would be scandalized by my last comment.)


Mischa, Heidi's friend, had some, so I took this picture.  See why we were wondering what was in the cooler?
 We took some pictures on the grounds around the temple. 



 

It was very windy. There was no one around to take
our picture, so we did it ourselves.



Even though there were drought conditions, the flowers were gorgeous!

There are lots of stairs!












 

 

 

Hamilton Gardens 

We continued on to Hamilton.  We wanted to see the town and the famous Hamilton Gardens.  We walked around town, bought an adapter at a tech store and drove to the gardens.  It is a huge park with a variety of gardens from different areas of the world.  The gardens are authentic in their layout and their flowers and foilage.  Here are some highlights.  I have some other pictures in an album on Snapfish if you would like to see more, or just Google Hamilton Gardens, NZ. 

A fountain surrounded by flowers and shrubs
English Garden

This is the entrance to the English Gardens. I couldn't believe the tall, imaculately trimmed hedges! 

From the Oriental Scholar Garden

Chinoiserie Garden

 

 

Indian (India) Fragrant Garden

Designed to imitate a Persian Carpet.

This was our favorite because of the

beautiful frangrace throughout the garden.

Italian Gardens

 The gardens were so peaceful and serene. 

It was truly a wonder!

 

               Maori Garden   The eyes are mussel shells.  This garden was a little scary to tell the truth.  They don't need scarcrows there.

 

Behind the gardens was a stream. 

 

 

 

We didn't even go to the rose garden or any of the other areas at the huge park.  It took us two hours to go through all of these gardens.  We were tired and needed to be on our way.  Something for next time!



 

 

If you haven't figured out by now, we love this beautiful country!  No wonder Heidi wants to live here.  The people have always been very kind and willing to help. 

 

Stay tuned for posts about Tauranga, Rotorua, and Wellington.