Rivers and things

For a bunch of colonials I think NZ serves the most amazing freshly brewed coffees in the world.  I am no expert but we did not find anything as delicious as a trim flat white in Europe.

So, what one does (sounds pompous already!) is seek out a decent  cuppa in every town or city one visits.  Even the Caltex petrol service stations ‘Wild Bean” cafes on the motorways and  State Highways do a brilliant take away  coffee.

We went to Hamilton to measure up a job for Roger’s FRP. He dropped me off in Hamilton’s city centre and I walked the length of Victoria Street and was appalled …..

Homeless, scruffy, aimless souls, run down shops and an air of a dying city centre?   I had loved the main street of the city in the 1970’s when I was a university student and would go into the posh shops to covert the most amazing furnishings or the book shops to revere the quality hard bound books.  There weren’t many decent restaurants to enjoy in those days but the affluence of a thriving farming based economy was obvious.  Not now.

I enjoyed a delicious coffee at Scott’s Epicurean café and ambled on down into the Art Gallery.  Hamilton has always done art well. And, I love the river behind the gallery, its strength, its power, pretty tree lined and park like surrounding banks and the tiny pavilion I was privileged to solemnise one of Nikki and Rick’s friends’ marriages there.  Not to mention flying over that part of the river, more than once in Max’s hot air balloon.

So to lunch – we could not find anything appealing on the main ‘drag’.   The only populated area was the fore front of the Sky City gambling place and there we found a very subdued but tasteful restaurant called Silk.   Roger was more than perplexed when asked for his ‘action’ card to pay for the meal.