Well-meaning city bureaucrats and councillors have not helped its cause. Fountain City. Really? Where? And, most memorably, the unfortunate Hamilton - More than you expect.
I've been there. I've sledged Hamilton, sniggered at its pretentious ways while sipping my flat white down the road in Cambridge (oh, the irony), laughed at its branding issues. But I was wrong.
I was wrong because...Hamilton Gardens.
This world-class attraction at the southern entrance to the city is home to over 20 themed gardens. There are expansive rolling lawns, with paths for strolling, dog-walking or toddler-triking. There are vast drifts of camellias and rhododendrons. There is the fragrantly alliterative Rogers Rose Garden.
But it is in the smaller walled gardens that I have been delightfully lost this week. I've felt like Alice plunging into Wonderland while negotiating hidden doors, twisting pathways and regimented plantings. Many of these small spaces, each one carefully curated, are performance venues for the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival (So worth a visit. Here's the website)
There's the Japanese Garden of Contemplation. The Italian Renaissance Garden. The Chinese Scholars' Garden. Te Parapara Garden. The Sustainable Back Yard. To name just a few. They just make you want to stroll right on in, don't they?
Waikawa Audio (We make you sound better than you are) is on the job at the Festival this week and next, providing sound for dancers, opera singers, actors and comedians. CEO Bruce plans where to run cables and set up amps, hoists speakers and sends his minion off to find left-handed screwdrivers. This minion follows in his wake, loaded with gear and absorbing techie terms. And stopping to take photos, of course.
So, thank you to those foresighted 1960s Hamilton city governors who had the vision to create these gardens out of a rubbish dump. And to today's green-fingered staff who lovingly tend the gardens in their care.
The Waikawa Audio (We hear you even if no one else can) gig at the Gardens Festival really is a family affair. Larry knows his way there. And Bill is a regular too. For the past two years, he has been the official Green Room for the percussionists of the Sunset Symphony orchestra. This year, his role is support vehicle to Waikawa Audio (We're all ears). Happy families.
