quilt shop, kiwis and gloworms

What an interesting day! To start with, a shower at the caravan park at Hamilton. Every time you pressed the button you got about 20 secs of water, then it cut out and you had to press it again. Frustrating!
then we went to Gordonton, to Grandmothers Garden. what an amazing patchwork shop! And costly (adds barry). rooms and rooms of fabric, quilts I've seen pictures of that seem even more amazing in person, . . I could have stayed for hours but barry said if I did he was taking the money. bought quite a bit of nz fabric for a quilt when i come home . . hoping for more . . .
Then, with tomtom being psychotic again, we headed back through hamiltion and on to Otorohanga. Very stressful with just maps!!! Saw kiwis in a nocturnal house - they look quite cuddly for a bird, have very long bills, and one of them loved being stroked from its head down its neck to its back, and lay its head on the ground for this. Saw it being fed also, on fake worms and other things. Also saw lots of other NZ birds, including other flightless ones, and a couple of very fat ones, and several sorts of gecko, including green ones and leopard spotted ones.
Then on to Waitomo, and a walk (up and down stairs) through a cave, then a boat float through part of the cave with thousands and thousands of gloworms. Like thick thick stars in the sky - awesome! We also got sprinkled on underground by water dripping.
A pretty amazing day all round. There is so much to see and do . . every day we end up really tired, then get up and go all day again!
Only one person can do anything in the van at once - the other must sit or lay still. Luckily we are sort of practiced with our caravan. We also have clothes in kitchen drawers, etc - not much room, but we can leave both beds made up, and this gives us storage space underneath. It also makes the best door unusable . . . we are starting to learn where we have put everything and how to organize ourselves. Not so much searching. .
Campervan drives surprizingly carlike with lots of power. This is good, because almost all NZ so far is either hilly or mouuntainous! Many very steep mountains, driving along a little narrow ridge on top . It is also full of sheep, lambs and cows and green, green , green . . .. And occasional horses, donkeys, deer, pigs, llamas, geese, chickens running aroung loose and turkeys also running around loose. Plenty of friendly cats. And lots of women who sound like Lyndsay McMillan!