Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 13.02 Hamilton: Seeing the Hamilton Gardens

Aside from all the practical challenges of living as a pilgrim or sojourner—traveling safely, getting fed, finding safe shelter, etc.—for a discretionary traveler there are at least two deep challenges that go to the heart of travel and (arguably) of life. These are the challenges of seeing the ‘right things’ and of seeing at all.

As for seeing the right things, we rely on other travelers who have visited our prospective destinations or we rely on natives. All other things being equal, the natives are generally and rightly regarded as the more reliable (a point that must be kept in mind in reading this Kiwi travel blog by a non-Kiwi).

As an illustration of the challenge of seeing the right things, consider Exhibit A, the Hamilton Gardens in Hamilton, New Zealand. The gardens are run by the Hamilton municipal government and are open year round to the public (for free, no less). Jean and I had decided in our first week in Hamilton that we’d want to visit the Hamilton Gardens. The gardens are touted by Hamiltonians as the premier tourist attraction in the city. They may be the city’s only tourist attraction.

I’ve looked at a number of New Zealand travel guides before arriving in Hamilton and subsequent to our arrival. I have yet to come across a guide that shows Hamilton as anything other than a black dot on a map. It never seems to be starred for a ‘must see’. To be sure, the city (population 209,000) is a visitor magnet and a magnet for temporary residents. The universities and other tertiary educational institutions (including the University of Waikato) draw in 40,000 students, many who are but temporary residents. And the rugby and cricket stadiums and the like draw in outsiders who are sports fans. Not least, Hamilton is a medical center with several hospitals, among them the Waikato Hospital, the largest in New Zealand. So there are all kind of folk drawn into Hamilton, Jean and me included. But all things considered, Hamilton and perhaps at least this part of the Waikato Region is the nearest thing in New Zealand to ‘flyover country’. Seemingly Hamilton is not or cannot be a star in any constellation worthy of a traveler’s attention. Seemingly, but not quite.

For one, the Waikato Region (where Hamilton is situated) is the ‘green heart of New Zealand’ or so it’s occasionally billed. And while all of New Zealand, except for the snow-capped peaks, is green and while the coasts, mountains, and at least Auckland are spectacular, there is a heart-warming attraction about the Waikato. If you’ve seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, you’ve (at some level) seen the Waikato. The scenes in Middle Earth were filmed on a set built in farmland between Cambridge and Matamata, in the Waikato. ‘Hobbiton’, as it’s called, has become a tourist attraction. But Hamilton itself remains a black dot, without benefit of a star, or so the travel guides I’ve seen would have you believe.

Several days before visiting the Hamilton Gardens I decided to learn what I could learn about the gardens, the better to see what could be seen there. In a bookstore I favor for postcards and postage stamps I came across a book entitled Garden Tours: A Visitor’s Guide to 50 Top New Zealand Gardens. The Hamilton Gardens didn’t make the Top 50. Yet some publicity I’d seen suggested the Hamilton Gardens were among the best in New Zealand. Either this publicity was overblown and deluded or the author of the aforementioned guide was—shall we say—‘cartographically challenged’.

Now that Jean and I have seen them, I’d say the Hamilton Gardens fully merit a measure of pride and not only among locals. The grounds of the gardens along the Waikato River present many things, but the central ‘garden features’, as they’re termed, are the garden collections. The garden collections with one notable exception—the American Modernist Garden—are very good to superb. The general level of maintenance is high. Imagination and knowledge have been beautifully harnessed. Again and again the gardens are a delight. With this post I’ve included overviews or partial views of four of the six gardens in the so-called ‘Paradise Garden Collection’. Besides the Paradise Garden Collection there are the Productive Garden Collection (four gardens), the Fantasy Garden Collection (one garden open, one under construction, and a third planned), the Cultivar Garden Collection (four gardens), and the Landscape Garden Collection (four gardens). Based on my admittedly limited experience I’d say anyone interested in visiting but one New Zealand public garden is unlikely to do much better than visiting the Hamilton Gardens. Experience or Kiwis may prove me wrong but Hamilton deserves a star at least in a map of the universe of public gardens—and not just New Zealand gardens.

After visiting the Hamilton Gardens I subsequently learned on the web that the author of that aforementioned guide was British and that (reportedly) she hadn’t even visited a number of her ‘top’ gardens. Her not being a Kiwi at least partially explains, but it cannot excuse, her omission of the Hamilton Gardens and perhaps other gardens from her book. Alas, as travelers we must rely on other people and (often enough) publications in print or on the web. We want our travel time to be well spent on seeing the right things. But seeing and doing the right things—going to the best gardens, rafting the best rivers, getting the best deals, doing the best things, etc.—is only half the deep problem in travel (or life). The other half is seeing at all—with all that that implies.

I’ll attempt to address the traveler’s problem of seeing, really seeing, in a subsequent post. But I don’t want to tax readers with posts of undue length. Pardon me if I’ve taxed your patience in this one. I hope you’ll enjoy the four pictures I’ve included. And of course you can learn more about the Hamilton Gardens, if you choose, by simply clicking right here.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean