Not Exactly the Gateway to the North Island

Feeding the Ducks in the Misty Morning
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A quick stop in Palmerston North was in order to help our daughter Chelsea celebrate her 23rd birthday.  While waiting for her to get off work we headed for the botanical gardens described in the  New Zealand For Free book I had purchased before our journey began. The book describes the palm-lined drive on Manawaroa Street as the introduction to the city's beautiful gardens.

This drive is called the Victoria Esplanade and is indeed lovely but the walking path dead ends and leads to what looks like a track into the woods, where you cross the miniature train tracks over and over before emerging near the river but no closer to the gardens. Taking a right hand turn ensures that you will not see the gardens but will on a very sunny day be exposed to damaging sun while you swelter along the well maintained path.

I swear it only came into existence after I began drinking

Old Shoes Do Have Value
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Turning around on the path and heading back with the intention of not straying into the woods is harder than it seems. Because we were now following a marked path that for some reason crosses those train tracks again (the train only runs during school holidays) and pops you out into the gardens.  And they are lovely, small and well kept with a fern house, native birds housed in enclosures, a wading pool, and an experimental rose garden.  By experimental I mean that new varieties of roses are developed in this garden.  It was then that we discovered that if upon entering the Esplanade we had just walked down the left side instead of the right, we would have been in the gardens and not the wandering the in the bush.

We took Chelsea to the Cuba Cafe for dinner and met her flat mates and returned to our gloomy backpackers where drinking was not allowed anywhere in the place especially in your room, ensuring that I would consume at least a half a bottle of wine tucked away in our room.  I also found the TV room, which I swear only came into existence after I began drinking, and found it was as soulless as the rest of the place.

Palmerston North is not a destination of choice, though for a smallish town (77,000) it has a nice downtown and the drive from Wellington is lovely.