We're still well behind blog-wise after being without wifi at the last two places we stayed, so I'll try to bring you up to date following Joanne's post yesterday on Wellington.
On the last morning in Wellington we picked up a new rental car and had a long drive to Napier on the east coast. It never seems to look far on the map however there are so many twisty / turny roads here it's impossible to keep a good average speed going. I do my best but have to slow down when Joanne starts leaving permanent fingernail marks on the dash!
On the way to Napier we stopped in Martinborough for a lunchbreak and nosy. Martinborough is a small town in the heart of wine country. It looked a bit more what I'd expect an Australian wine town to look like - so much for preconceived notions of what things should look like. More wineries, wine shops, cafes, and shops. Here's a couple of photos (do you like Joanne's new sun glasses?).
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| Martinborough Main Street |
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| Joanne Delaney - Or Hobbit Movie Star? |
Our Napier digs a "French style" cottage about 8 kilometres from Napier. It was on the side of a hill overlooking Napier in the distance. For your viewing pleasure....
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| Cottage Near Napier |
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| View of Napier from the Cottage |
Napier itself was quite interesting, and very different from anything we'd seen elsewhere in NZ. An earthquake in 1931 essentially flattened the city and once they scraped together some recession years money they rebuilt in the fashion of the day - i.e. Art Deco. Apart from one or two places in California / Florida, Napier has the highest concentration of Art Deco architecture anywhere. I took way too many photos, here's three examples.
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| Napier Art Deco (now open for accommodation!) |
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| More Napier Art Deco |
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| Looks like California to me |
Napier was very California to me.
We decided to go to a winery for lunch; we selected the Black Barn Winery (from a list of about 35) - however when we got there we found out it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays! So we explored nearby village of North Havelock which was very nice indeed and much to Joanne's liking as it probably had the highest nice cafes per capita that we've seen yet!
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| Black Barn Winery near North Havelock |
We're now in a small place called Hahei Beach on the Coromanel Peninsula (which thankfully has wifi). Joanne will update in a few days - stay tuned.
PS - We were watching the TV news last night, the annual Haka competition is underway. There are 40 teams competing, all slapping their thighs, sticking out their tongues and bulging their eyeballs. I'd
love to see what a judges scoresheet looks like.
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| Grrrr |
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