[ Zoom Map ]

Hamilton City, New Zealand (Aotearoa)
37° 46' S 175° 17' E
Feb 09, 2006 10:03
Distance 0km

Choose another map, showing:

• New Zealand (North Island)
• New Zealand
• Oceania
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Hamilton City

Golf and Awesome!!!!

Text written in: English

The last journal I wrote I complained about an authentic experience, and somehow just sort of by magic my wish has come true. Noah and I today drove around the Hamilton area searching for a golf course on which to play more Kiwi golf (not any different than real golf, just played in New Zealand), when we found a course which actually housed a few sheep in the middle, sort of out in the country. We walked into the club and immediately were greeted by a very friendly woman who asked us where we were from (apparently we dont sound like locals, who knew?). After we gave her the low down she invited us over to her house for dinner and to stay the night, stoked we said we would certainly be delighted if it wasnt too much of an inconvenience.

We played our round of golf which turned out to be my worst round of nine holes ever. I scored a (number deleted so that I wont be embarrased), but was happy at the end anyway because when we finished the friendly woman, Judy was her name, and her husband Brian greeted us and had us follow them in their car to their house near by. We drove through the country for a bit and then arrived at a very modern looking and comfortable house in what seemed like the middle of nowhere (as it turns out its only about 6 k from Hamilton). When we got their our hosts sat us down and we had a drink and chatted.  They determined very shortly after that we should drive to raglan, a nearby town on the western coast, to see the nearby ocean (which we hadnt really seen yet). On the way we bombarded them with questions about their family, their business, and New Zealand in general, and despite our ignorance they were consistently very happy to answer. As it turns out Judy and Brian are former dairy farmers who have three grown sons who live nearby. They told us all about dairy farming in NewZealand and are actually going to take us out to see cows being milked (by machines of course) tomorrow morning. Although they had seen some trying times, they actually turned out to be quite sucessful and now enjoy their success by golfing a lot and I guess taking in travellers and entertaining them. When we got to the coast they showed us a beach with some huge waves and some crazy surfers running out to surf in the rain and huge swells (it was raining), and we watched this for a while (actually, quite coincidentally we saw the hippy guy who we had picked mussells with running out to surf as well, weird). Then we returned home for dinner.

 

Dinner was excellent, Lamb leg with gravy, mint jelly, green beans, potatos, squash (what judy called pumpkin) and kumra (a type of sweetish potato here). It was absolutely delicious and of course because Judy was used to cooking for Brian and her three sons, we had plenty to eat. After dinner we played with their cat a bit and took a shower, and now we are using the internet. Despite the fact that what we did wasnt particularly exciting, I was practically thrilled by the whole thing because of what was actually happneing. After only meeting us for maybee a minute these people invited us to dinner, to stay in their homes, to share with us their stories, and to show us their part of the country all without really thinking about it. It is incredibly generosity, and incredibly cool that we got to do this and see this part of New Zealand, and I may not be able to go to sleep tonight because Ill be thinking about seeing some moo cows get milked. Awesome!!!!!