Thursday 24 March Road trip day 4 – Hamilton

Italian garden

butterfly

Final day of the road trip we diverted off the main highway into the centre of Hamilton, a fair city built on the Waitomo river with lots of tended gardens as befits a university city. My Mum is an avid gardener and has a beautiful garden in England. For her, and for us, we visited the beautiful Hamilton Gardens
We arrived back in Whangarei in time to call into the riggers to pick up the results of our rig test. We got a clean bill of health and despite would-be-experts telling us our rigging needed tightening, the experts told us the tension was perfect. Our only remedial work is to have one lower shroud toggle pin replaced. Last call of the day was the sailmakers to collect our repaired headsail.
As we left for our trip on Monday morning it was raining and when we were loading our gear on board it was raining once more. It rained all the next day so we took it easy and stayed alongside one more day.