Do you recognize the guy in the statue? It was a little rainy so it's not a great picture and if you're not around my age you may be at a disadvantage. That's Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show!
Turns out that Richard O'Brien who played Riff Raff in the movie and also wrote the silly thing lived in Hamilton, New Zealand. He was living there and cutting hair on the side when he wrote the play that later became a movie.
The statue is located in downtown at the site where the barbershop and a theatre sat side by side. In addition to the statue there are public toilets decorated like the lab in the movie and a webcam broadcasting people doing the time warp.
So the Hamilton connection to Sarah's wedding? It's where the dance was invented that we did as a part of our "father/daughter dance" at her wedding.
A cult classic movie and a classically non-traditional father /daughter dance with my most favorite daughter!
The second Hamilton surprise was it's Botanical Garden. We had heard good things about it but we had no idea how good. It was actually named the 2014 International Garden of the Year and while I have no idea what that actually means it sounds pretty darn impressive!
The gardens are huge and sit right on the banks of the Waikato River. They have a rose garden that was up there with Portland Rose Garden and multiple gardens from around the world such as a Japanese, Italian, English Countryside and American Contemporary just to name a few.
Even though it was a rainy kind of chilly afternoon the gardens provided a very peaceful and beautiful place for a leisurely stroll.
Hamilton was a stop over for us on the way to Rotorua and we only had a few hours. In the little time we were there we had a few very nice surprises!
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| Riff Raff Stature in Downtown Hamilton |
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| Botanical Gardens in Hamilton-Looks Like Our Old Backyard Back in Burleson |
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| Rose Garden in the Botanical Gardens |
