Travelling overseas is expensive, especially if you’re planning to go all the way to London. What if you just went to Hamilton instead?

Is Kirikiriroa Hamilton the new London? Yes, we’re really doing this. Now, settle down and hear me out. 

Travelling overseas is expensive, especially to London. Now more than ever. So what if, like Brynley Stent in the new season of Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club, you give Hamilton a nudge first? 

Bryn is contemplating moving to London to do her OE but she’s worried about going on her own, and nervous about starting from scratch in a place she doesn’t know. As an experiment, she takes the train to Hamilton to practice being by herself in a new city. 

Like London, Hamilton also has a river winding through it. It has trains and bicycles and bookshops and lovely gardens, too.  

Some might say that Hamilton is having a moment. Currently, it holds the title for New Zealand’s fastest-growing city, having outpaced major centres like Auckland and Tauranga.

With a population of 192,100, it’s up 1.4% on the previous year (while New Zealand’s total population grew by 0.7% over the same period). Hamilton is also about to get its first ever skyscraper – a 25-storey, five-star hotel.

While we don’t yet know whether Bryn ultimately decides to move to London, what with the cost of jet fuel and all, I’d like to put forward a hypothesis for consideration: Might Hamilton be the new London? 

I used to live in Hamilton. I also used to live in London. So I figured that makes me uniquely qualified to compare the two. I hadn’t visited the Tron in a while, so I thought I’d pop down for the day and investigate.

Te Huia vs the tube

Te Huia Auckland-Hamilton train: I think this is the first time I’ve been on a train since leaving London. It’s Wednesday morning at 9.45am and I’m on the Te Huia in Parnell, Auckland, bound for Frankton, Hamilton. The train leaves bang on time and is clean, warm and tidy. There is ordinarily free WiFi on board, but it isn’t working and that’s okay with me. I want to look out the window anyway.

I have my pick of seats, so I take one at a table and for two hours and 30 minutes I watch the world whiz by. In between the sterile subdivisions of GJ Gardener homes, is buccolic countryside in which innumerable cows loiter, bushels of Toetoe, and the shimmering Waikato River, which really is magnificent. There is also many mounds of gravel, a good few dilapidated corrugated iron sheds and a gang of goats.

Less happy-making is the schedule: it is seriously limited. There are only two Auckland-to-Hamilton trains on a weekday and two back. 

The train arrives in to Frankton station a few minutes ahead of time, and I step out into a riot of winter sunshine, blue skies and a bite in the air. 

The London Tube: Perhaps this is not an entirely fair comparison given most of the time riding the London tube involved weaving through sooty, dark underground tunnels, with zero cows or toetoe. Still, unlike Te Huia, there were a lot of them, though they were often late, or too full, and you had to go to a deep place of calm when you had someone’s armpit in your face, or their hot breath on your neck – but then again with 9.2 million people needing to get around town it’s understandable. 

Sadly, the very best thing about the London Underground is about to change. It used to be that there was no cellular coverage when you were on the train. No one could reach you, call you, text you, you couldn’t check emails or do life admin. You were offline for small snatches of time. Instead, people would read books and newspapers and gaze off into the middle distance. So quaint! Don’t worry, they would never try to strike up small talk, you were just left the hell alone in every way and it was glorious. But recently, it was announced that London Underground was very close to rolling out full cellular coverage in all underground trains. A travesty.

The Hamilton Gardens vs Kew Gardens

The Hamilton Gardens: Believe me when I say the Hamilton Gardens are world class. And it’s not just me. Tripadvisor ranked it among the world’s top 1% of attractions and in 2014 Hamilton Gardens won International Garden of the Year. It was good then, it’s even better now. 

Once a dump site, today the 54 hectare park hosts 18 enclosed themed gardens, which span 4,000 years of history, with more in development. I’ve been visiting these gardens since I was 10 and by my estimation, I might have been somewhere between 20-30 times. Even in winter, like today, the gardens look amazing. It’s hard to pick a favourite, so don’t make me. But here’s just a little taster of three:

• The Surrealist Garden – think Dr Seuss meets Alice in Wonderland meets Edward Scissorhands. There are huge, creepy ivy-covered tree structures with mechanical branches that move (and squeak, they need a bit of CRC) and an oversized wheelbarrow, deck chair and ginormous white door. This one is a hit with the kids.
• The Katherine Mansfield Garden – a recreation inspired by Mansfield’s short story The Garden Party. Picture a grand old colonial house in 1900s Wellington, a tennis court, a long table laden with delicious looking polyurethaned food and musical instruments ready to be played for the party which is about to commence. A Ford Model T is parked in the circular driveway. Do I climb into it and pretend to drive? Yes, yes I do.
• The Indian Char Bagh Garden – this one is a beauty. Inspired by the four gardens of paradise described in the Quran, it’s based on a riverside garden from the north of India during the Mughal Empire. Featuring a Persian style carpet of brightly coloured flowers and trickling water, this garden is perfect for any and all of your frolicking, pondering and contemplating needs.

Kew Gardens: Not gonna lie. When I first visited Kew Gardens I was a little underwhelmed. Having been a frequent flier to the Hamilton Gardens, there were some big gumboots to fill. And while Kew Gardens has a lot going for it – that glass house is pretty cool, and the fact that it claims to be the most biodiverse place on Earth is impressive and all that – I found it just a bit meh in comparison. There were nice tulips and dainty bluebells, but where’s my massive wheelbarrow? Where’s my kumara pit? Where’s my polyurethened cake?

Waikato River bike ride vs London’s Boris Bikes 

Waikato River bike ride: It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride so my mum and I rent a couple of bikes from River Riders (handily situated at the Hamilton Gardens) and head south along the Te Awa River Ride bike path, which snakes alongside the Waikato River. The path actually spans 65km from Ngaruawahia through to Lake Karapiro, but we’re doing just a small stretch. And even though e-bikes are on offer, I force my mum to go old-school and we ride and heave and pant for an hour and a half.  

The river looks gorgeous and we can hardly see any effluent. The well-maintained bike path takes us through native bush, and even past my old house. We ride until our bottoms protest and we’ve suffered enough from the indignance of having 80-year-olds in high vis jackets fly past us on e-bikes. 

London’s Boris Bikes: It is a miracle that I’m still alive. I am a daydreamer. I like nothing more than to look at clouds and flowers and trees and people and rodents and swirling rubbish. This was not conducive to safely riding around on a Boris bike in the chaotic streets of London. After nearly being hit one too many times, I resolved to only ride in green spaces and parks – of which there are mercifully many. But I will say, I am a big fan of the public bicycle hire scheme. Often faster than the tube and cheaper than a taxi/uber, my husband used them all the time dashing from one meeting to another, his satchel slung over his back and his suit jacket flapping behind him in the wind. 

Browsers Bookshop vs Daunt Books

Browsers Bookshop: Browsers opened in 1996 and is my favourite second-hand bookstore. As a broke student back in the day, I used to prowl around the shop looking at books and never buying them. I’d sit on their overstuffed couches, listening to the background jazz music and thinking that nothing bad could ever happen to me so long as I was in there. It’s since moved across the road and it’s now in a fancier, architecturally designed space, with a cool café next door. Lovely, but missing some of the old shabby chic vibes I used to love. 

Daunt Books: Daunt Books, founded in 1990 by one James Daunt, is an independent chain of bookstores. It’s also a bougie hipster’s dream. In my manic pixie dream girl phase (are manic pixie dream girls still a thing?), I was right at home in the flagship Marylebone branch of this bookshop. Frequently cited as one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, with its floor-to-ceiling dark oak galleries, stained-glass window and Edwardian architecture – not to mention an excellent book selection – you feel cool and brainy and ye old worldy the second you step through its doors. And, if you were insufferable like I must have been, you buy the tote bag and mince around with it.

‘More than you’d expect’ vs ‘domine dirige nos’ 

More Than You’d Expect: This was Hamilton’s official slogan from 2000-2004. It’s hard to know where to even begin with this and why on God’s green earth a bunch of marketers from the Hamilton City Council (who were presumably remunerated for their efforts) believed this was the best they could rustle up. In 2004, the Council decided that the finest slogan was no slogan and abandoned it entirely – and there’s been no official slogan since. Unofficially however, the bombastic Hamiltron: City of the Future seems to have been embraced by many. On its website, Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand accurately snipes: “Hamilton has struggled to find a slogan resistant to mockery.” Ouch. Hamilton’s Coat of Arms from 1946 features a crown, three oxen heads and a blue and white shield, flanked by two pūkeko.

Domine Dirige Nos: The historic Latin motto of the City of London translates to: “Lord, guide us”. It appears on the City’s Coat of Arms and has been used since at least 1609. The Coat of Arms is a silver shield featuring a red St. George’s cross and a red sword, flanked by two silver dragons. London, you win this one. As much as I love a swamp hen, silver dragons are a hard act to follow.

In conclusion, here’s what I would say to you, Brynley. If you do decide to sell a kidney and fly to London, know that if things don’t work out, Hamilton is here ready, waiting and more than you’d expect.