Getting to Napier

So we kinda thought we might make it all the way to Napier on our first day out from Wellington, but in the end I was using the Internet for most of the morning, and so we only managed to leave Ray and Amanda's place by early afternoon. It meant we wouldn't really get too far before dark, and so we decided to just stop off at the town of Greytown, while we still had daylight to have a look around.

The town itself is very small, but lovely and 'arty'. We very quickly and easily sorted out where we'd stay that night (a very basic campsite with just one other camper van), and then went back to the town for a coffee and a read of the paper in a really cosy little cafe. Then it was a drink and some free pool in the famous Greytown Hotel before heading back to the town's other hotel, the White Swan for a lovely dinner (they had a '2 for 1' offer that night, so the place was packed giving it a nice buzzy atmosphere).

One of the reasons I choose to stop in Greytown was that it is very close to another New Zealand wine region, Martinborough. So the following morning (after nobody ever showing up to take any camping fees from us), we drove to the town of Martinborough and did a few walks through some local vineyards before doing a tasting and having a gorgeous lunch at the Alana Estate Winery.

Then we drove on towards Napier, but only made it as far as Waipara. We'd stopped off along the way at a wildlife rescue place that is helping to build up the numbers of native Kaka birds and that also had a Kiwi enclosure. Being nocturnal creatures, the enclosure was in darkness, but once your eyes adjust we got fantastic views of the two resident kiwi's as they foraged around. At one stage (Sarah had gotten bored and wandered off), one of kiwis came right up to the glass front of the enclosure and was poking around literally millimeters from my face - you literally couldn't ever get a better view of these shy creatures, it was great!

So our campsite in Waipara was actually a little scary. It was quite run down and seemed to be a bit like an American trailer park, where people live full time. There was a group of pretty rough looking Maori drinking and playing a dice game in the kitchen as I was cooking, but they were really friendly and tried (unsuccessfully) to explain the rules of their game to us as we ate dinner.

Next morning we explored around Havelock North and Hastings, just South of Napier. Another nice small town that has the look of lots of money, and a great lookout from the big hill that dominates the town. It was actually very cloudy as we drove up the hill, but of course, with a bit of patience it all cleared up lovely.

After the lookout we stopped off at a honey farm, which I thought was brilliant. Loads of information on bees (they really are mad yokes altogether), with transparent hives so you watch them working away, and of course lots of honey tasting. Naturally I bought a slab of honeycomb, which takes no processing at all, it's just straight from the hive, and therefore the cheapest and in my mind the tastiest (although at home, is honeycomb more expensive than blended honey? If so, then I now know that it`s a total rip off).

So we finally arrived in Napier after taking 3 days to get there (I think Ray told us it was a 4.5 hour drive!), and after getting settled in Wally's we strolled about the town for a bit. That evening we just cooked in the well equiped kitchen and watched a DVD in the large comfy common room.

The next day we hired bikes and rode up to the town's lookout point to view the small working port and the long stretch of beach front. Then on to the neighbouring area of Ahuriri, where we took refuge from a downpour in the waterfront hotel before heading back to Napier and getting caught in another downpour! But no matter, for after dropping back the bikes the plan had been to go straight to the neighbouring outdoor hot pools - which were brilliant. I think I stayed there for about 4 or 5 hours in all, just constantly alternating between the hot pools, the cold pools, the steam room and the sauna (Sarah had headed off early for a haircut).

One of the highlights of Napier though was a great Indonesian dinner. Apparently the restaurant has been there for 20 years or something and has a great reputation (although the owner guy is now trying to sell it, as he has a new family and wants out of the restaurant scene). It was the first Indonesian meal we've had on this trip and was a nice change - and I was well impressed with it's authenticity.

The next morning we popped into the local museum, which has a great display about Napier's famous earthquake in 1931 that practically destroyed the city (and the guy at the desk asked us if we'd felt the earthquake that had occured at 3am the night before - apparently it was quite a big one, and had woken him and lots of other people, but we never felt anything - probably due to the fantastic suspension of our van!).

So after the museum we were off to Taupo.