Birdwood Gallery and Sculpture Garden

Today Daughter, her M-I-L and I went to Havelock North to visit the Birdwood Sculpture Garden, Gallery, Sweet Shop and Cafe. It has a very interesting story. The family farm in Zimbabwe was seized and the family were  evicted with nothing. Immigration to New Zealand followed and they made a brand new start in their new country, building up a beautiful and very successful gallery of sculptures made in Zimbabwe. In the Gallery they also have really unusual or quirky artifacts with quite a focus on birds and hand made crafts and oddities.  Much of the stock is made in Zimbabwe. There are more statues in the grounds and paths wander through them. There is also a cafe where we had our lunch.

The sweet shop is modelled on an old fashioned sweet shop with large jars of all the old fashioned sweeties you could imagine. Some came home of course for the grandchildren.

The blip is one of the sculpture heads that are in the garden and is made of serpentine. Most of them are in awkward places to photograph with messy and unsuitable backgrounds like cars and buildings but this one was against the hedge.

Birdwood is an interesting place I would like to go back to sometime .