Sunday the 21st of May,

Auckland to Hamilton, Adrian & Lil’s small farm. 151kms

After a nice couple of days staying with Jethro, Leo & their 3 children in Auckland, Jen & I head down south to catch up with the last cousin we’ll have time to visit on this NZ side tour.
Adrian, (who is the same age as Jenny), Lil & their two children live on a small 3 acre property about 5kms out of Hamilton. For our drive in the Red Postie Van the sun was shining but max temp only about 12C.

 

We arrive into Hamilton on a cold but sunny day. Quick stop at the lake to ring Adrian & find out where they live.

When we arrive at the hobby farm around 2.30pm, Jenny’s Aunty Dianne, Casey & Sam (Haley/Kelvin’s kids) are there as well. We have never had the opportunity to meet Adrian or Lil in the past so it’s great to catch up with them. They are lovely & like everyone else we have caught up with extremely welcoming. We had a very enjoyable night & Adrian even lit up the wood hungry 70’s style copper fire place for us. Overnight temperatures were predicted to get down to -5C (ended up being -2.5C).

 

Lil cooks us dinner, while Adrian lights the 70’s Retro Copper Fire Place. Big thank you to you both. 
Monday, 22nd of May,
Adrian & Lil’s small farm, sight seeing around Hamilton.

Adrian woke us up at 7.30am, saying we should get up and check out the sun rising over the frosty landscape. I’m glad he did, it was quite spectacular. Soon after the guys all headed off to school & work, leaving Jenny, Myself & their animals…3 dogs, 2 cats, cows, goat & chooks to amuse ourselves.

Once we were organised, it was time to head into Hamilton (a small city, pop: 162k). Taking the RVoC our first stop was Kmart, Jenny needed some warmer pants.
Then we headed to Adrian’s work for a visit & look around. He helps to run a motorcycle equipment outlet called Whites Powersports. Very interesting & bigger then we thought it would be.

Next stop was to see Lil at Boyds Motorcycles, where she works as a Manager. While there we bought a new Sena Intercom for our new modular helmets & investigated a motorcycle purchase/buyback agreement for a future 3 month summer tour. Definitely a viable option….

The last bit of sight seeing for our day in Hamilton was the Hamilton Gardens, quite a few people had suggested it is well worth checking out & guess what, they were right.

Have you heard of the game “Where’s Wally” ? Well to show you around Hamilton Gardens, we are going to play “Where’s Becky Beetle” , first few are easy, but it gets harder….enjoy 😀👍

After an eventful day we head back to the Hobby Farm, where we get organised for a huge Tuesday (lots of driving & we pick up the BMW GSA1200 Bike). That night is relaxing & we all go to bed at a reasonable 10pm. More frost overnight, winter is definitely here !

So that’s it for me folks, I’ll be hopping back over to Advrider too continue with the Ride Report updates during our last week in NZ & Jenny will keep the regular Blog updates coming for your amusement…. as always, thanks for following our mad cap travels, Will.

Mid-Life Blues, Lets go Riding.

*I think we forgot to put Becky in the photo shot of the Maori Storage Hut & Puke Mounds. Whoops Sorry…