I'm off on an adventure!: A Long Post About a Long Weekend in Napier

I'd been in Napier for about forty-five minutes in April when my Mom and Aunt had been over to visit, and it was high on the list of places to which I wanted to return. The first part of the road trip was a long weekend there. I picked up a rental car early on Friday morning, then went back to the flat to finish cleaning and throw the last few things into my bag. My wonderful flatmate graciously allowed me to leave the majority of my embarrassing amount of things there, to be picked up when I head to the South Island, so I was back to traveling the way I prefer - light!

I had one stop before I left, though when I’d arranged to meet a friend at Louis Sergeant (an absolutely divine French patisserie in the Wellington Central Business District), I’d failed to account for the fact that there was a big parade scheduled midday to welcome home the All Blacks, the recent winners of the World Rugby Cup. I heard later that 100,000 people turned up for the parade. For scale, the entire Wellington *region* only has a population of 400,000. Parking was a bit of a mess, but I was eventually able to find a place and catch-up with a dear friend who is also originally from the States and had just returned from a three week visit back home. She had (unexpectedly) brought me some American junk food (Nutty Bars! And white cheddar popcorn!), so I was definitely set for a road trip. It was, however, hard to peel myself away from Wellington, especially on a particularly stunning Spring day. Ah, well.

I took the long way to Napier, driving over the twisty-turny Rimutaka pass again (still as fun as I remember), and through miles and miles of green and beautiful farmland. I went a slightly different way than we had in April, when a misdirection on my part had lead us down the more main road. This route was less populated (three one-lane bridges), a bit curvy, and lovely. I saw several hawks along the way, including one who had just scooped up dinner.

I stayed at the County Hotel in Napier. The hotel is one of only a handful of buildings that survived the 1931 earthquake that leveled the town, at which time it was the county government offices (hence the name). It only became a hotel after renovations in 1992.

This was the view off of the balcony for my room.

The staircase was quite grand.

There's a library in the atrium in the center of the building, which is stocked with lots of books. And some excellent port.

I wandered for a bit through town, but wasn’t feeling much like shopping, so I instead turned toward the ocean, walked out to look over the bay, and wandered down the parade for a bit.

The next morning a breakfast I looked over to see this, one of many ways one can tour this city.

I went to the Art Deco Centre that I had walked past the night before, drooling over the hats, and decided to take an Art Deco tour the following day. Next door there's a vintage clothing and costume shop, where I drooled over more hats, shoes, dresses, wraps, jewelry… Then it was off to the museum and art gallery across the street, where I found that they were doing master chef classes throughout the day, and tickets to that were the same as admission to the museum and included entrance to said museum, so I booked it and wandered through the museum (and watched a heartbreaking survivor stories series with survivors from the quake) before going to see a Kiwi winner of Master Chef cook up some tuna stew, a tuna appetizer, and lemon sponge cake. It was interesting, but I wasn't a huge fan of the chef.

I then went to the Wine Centre and did a tasting of six red wines. The clerk gave me a small glass to sip while I went through the "sniffing" room to familiarize myself with an array scents that should (and should not) show up in certain wines. Then I went into an auditorium to watch a video with a flyover of the area followed by snippets of people from each vineyard talking about their wine as I sampled it. It was fun, though my general approach to wine remains no more sophisticated than, "Yes, please!"

After that, I wandered down the parade again to the aquarium, stopping to watch some tweenagers at a skate park doing some jaw dropping stunts. The air that some of them were catching was quite impressive.

The aquarium was small, but mighty. There was a kiwi right up by the glass in its enclosure, the best view I’ve had of one, which was very cool. (No pictures of that, as they are nocturnal animals and the room was rather dark). I was especially enchanted by the penguins, who were all rescues who are, for various reasons, unable to return to the wild.

The one in the center here is missing a fin, but that didn't stop it from hopping in the water for a swim.

That evening I went to the Old Church for dinner, a gorgeous, oddly enough, old church in the midst of a vineyard that has been converted into a stellar restaurant. The food and wine were all spectacular. At one point I chatted with the woman who owns the place, and she said that I should come back the next day as they would be having live music. Spoiler alert, I totally went back.

I had a glass of gamay noir (a varietal I'd not heard of before) on the patio before dinner, I loved the way the light reflected on to the table.

As I've said before, I probably should have named this blog "Table for One."

Whovian fans will understand why I was slightly disturbed to turn around and see this statue watching me...

After sitting on the patio for a leisurely lunch after returning the next day, I took a mini-tour of the area around Napier. I drove first to Taradale, a cute little suburb whose downtown looked fun but mostly closed down because it was Sunday. From there, I headed for Havelock North, taking a wrong turn when I misheard the GPS, which resulted in a really pretty detour through a little valley, over a hill, and back through Taradale. I did make it to Havelock North, another cute and more touristy town. There was a really cool stage/circus tent (originally built in the 1920s!) set up in a park, so I stopped to check it out. There had been a series of talks and performances for a local arts festival, but they were closing up, and the people I saw hanging around were volunteers having a party to celebrate the work they had done. I did talk to a nice lady who saw me wandering and kindly informed me that it was a private party, but she encouraged me to look inside the tent. It was GORGEOUS, I wish I had taken a picture.

From there, I looked at the map and decided to take a scenic route back to Napier, which luckily led me past the winery that produced the fabulous gamay noir I had had at dinner the night before. I stopped in and picked up a bottle to take back for an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner I had planned with a friend in Wellington.

From there, I started to head back to Napier, but then did a "that looks interesting!" turn on a whim to go out towards Cape Kidnappers, at the edge of Hawke's Bay. More lovely vineyards and farm country, then a nice view up the coast (the Cape itself is too rugged to get too close to, as it rises straight up out of the ocean for a few hundred feet).