New Zealand: Napier and Wellington

The Road to Napier

We stopped at Taupo for lunch, at a diner called Browns. They had free wi fi so we looked up where the location for Mount Doom was, as we had a feeling it wasn't that far from us. In fact, if it was not for a jutting headland, we would have been able to see it. Furthermore, we learned, it had erupted the previous week!

As we drove, the landscape changed from flat plains with yellow flowering plants to a more mountainous landscape.

We stopped off at viewpoints whenever it was safe to do so and we had the time. Sometimes it wasn't entirely obvious at first what the attraction was supposed to be - sometimes there would be a short walk to the view, as in the case of Waipunga Falls.

Waipunga Falls

Later, we saw what we thought was a nasty motorbike accident with an ambulance in attendance and a lot of "bikeys" (one of the many Australian/New Zealand words we'd picked up) waiting around. Soon after that we got to a café and stopped for coffee. There were a lot of bikeys there, too, who were evidently friends of the accident victim who were waiting there for the police, and listening to their conversation: "He came off his bike. Got a bruise and a scrape on his hip. Thinks he's dying," and realised the accident probably wasn't as bad as it had looked.

The Manse

We got a bit lost finding The Manse, our next stop. The first impression was a little unfortunate - the driveway leading to it was so full of holes and rutted that it seemed only suitable for a four wheel drive, not our little Toyota! We soon learned it wasn't usually like that. They had had a deluge of rain the day before which had washed most of their drive away. By the time we needed to drive on it again, someone had been with a digger and flattened it all out.

The house was very nice indeed. It was one of the luxury boutique hotels. Built for the Presbyterian minister in 1910, it had been extended in 2005. The current owners, Gary and his Dutch wife Detska (hope I've spelt it right) have been there just over a year.

Our room has a fabulous sweeping view, and I especially liked the window seat which was a great place to sit and write.

View from our room at The Manse

Beyond the Blue had made us a dinner reservation at The Manse. There was time for a very quick shower before joining our hosts on their patio for pre dinner drinks. Gary cracked open a bottle of white wine and we tucked into pre-dinner nibbles - three different cheeses, pickled onions, artichoke, hummus, dolmades, cured meats, bread and crackers - a meal in itself!

Arthur by the pool at The Manse

There were lots of animals around. They have chickens, two dogs and a cat, which we saw. They said they also had cows and pigs, which we didn't see.

The meal was lovely - a fine dining experience, and Gary, who is very knowledgeable about the local wines, matched each course with an appropriate wine. 

We learned another New Zealand word: "sticky". A sticky is a dessert wine. Finished with posh chocolates and coffee. The meal hadn't been pre-paid, so Arthur was a little nervous as to what such a high standard of meal was going to cost, but when we got the bill it was very reasonable.

Spooky!

During this meal, the most bizarre of the coincidences came to light. We were relating all the other places we had been to so far, and when we mentioned Matakana, Gary said, "We were there last weekend." It was his friend's anniversary; each year this friend has a big party in a different place and this year it had been Matakana. 

We'd lost track of what day of the week it was, but worked out that we had been there at the weekend too. Remember that party of 26? Well, one of them was Gary. He even remembered seeing us, now he thought of it, and had wondered why Arthur looked familiar!

Seeing other tourists more than once is probably less of a coincidence, as people tend to go on tours and visit the same places in a pretty similar order, but this one was a bit more Twilight Zone.

The only other guests were a couple who'd just got married. They were being picked up from their wedding reception later, so they weren't at dinner, The groom was at breakfast, but the bride wasn't - we didn't meet her at all. In the morning they were being picked up by helicopter for the next leg of their honeymoon.

Day 21: 30 November: Napier

We checked out the library opposite our room. Also known, I suspect, as Gary's man cave: there were books, of course, but it was also well stocked with cigars, cigar clippers, bottles of whisky and shotguns mounted over the mantel. 

We drove to Napier, and saw the helicopter on its way to collect the newlyweds - it flew over us.

Art Deco Napier

Napier is known as the Art Deco capital of the southern hemisphere. We had a look round and then stopped for coffee. Then we drove up to a lookout point. The view was spectacular but the port rather spoiled it. Still, we know now where all those logging trucks were going - there were piles and piles and piles of tree trunks waiting to go somewhere.

In the afternoon we took a walking tour. The tour starts from the Art Deco shop which is good place to browse around. Our guide was one of the volunteers from the Art Deco Society. He really knew his stuff, but we picked up that he wasn't a local. He said he was from North Napier: "Far North Napier", otherwise known as Liverpool, UK.

I feel I know a lot more about Art Deco now than I used to. It's characterised by symmetry, ziggurat shapes, zigzags, sunbursts and fountains.

Napier was devastated by an earthquake in 1931 (While there isn't anything in New Zealand that will kill you in terms of poisonous spiders or snakes or large animals like bears, there certainly seem to be a lot of natural phenomena that can kill you - tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes) and they rebuilt the town in what was then a modern style. In February each year there is an Art Deco weekend when people dress up in 1930s costume, and there are events in the streets, they relax the liquor bans and everyone has a big party, although fights can break out over picnic spots.

The buildings are painted in bright colours like sugar candies, so the decorative features stand out, but it wasn't always like that. It was only in about the 70s that they invented paint that could be used on concrete, and before that everything was just a dirty grey.

Views of Napier

The tour ended at 4.30, so it wasn't really worth driving back to The Manse as it took half an hour and then it would nearly be time to come out again to eat so we had a couple of hours to kill before anywhere opened. 

We drove up to a place called Perfume Point where it was extremely windy. We thought that was normal, but Gary told us later that the weather had actually been quite bad the last few days. We walked along the seafront for a bit and saw their millennium monument and a kids skatepark with a big notice saying "Free admission on your birthday". Arthur said it was a shame we weren't here a couple of days ago. 

We found a restaurant that Gary had recommended, Mint, on the sea front. Had a nice meal there and then got lost on the way back. There was one of the most spectacular sunsets I'd ever seen, but I couldn't take many pictures as we were driving and I was constantly being told to look things up on the map. By the time we got back, it had all gone.

Sunset in Napier

We had coffee with our hosts, and they gave us a lot of advice about the places to go on the South Island, and what to look out for, such as caravans selling crayfish by the side of the road.

We had some dessert wine which Gary said was on the house because Arthur had pointed out that one of the controls on the shower wasn't working properly, even though it hadn't inconvenienced us a whole lot - the shower worked, you simply couldn't switch between the large shower and the smaller one.

Day 22: 1 December: Napier to Wellington

For breakfast, we had scrambled egg made to Gary's special recipe which he got from a Chinese person. Add no milk or cream, put the beaten eggs straight into a pan and stir with chopsticks. This gives you white bits in the scrambled egg. He asked if we wanted some ham with that, and when we said yes, got a huge portion of ham and an enormous sausage so all in all it was rather too much to eat so early in the morning.

Arthur commented that we had heard something scrabbling around outside, like a small animal trying to get in. Gary said it was some sort of bird which he was well aware of and he'd been trying to shoot it! 

Wellington

Drove to Wellington. Quite a long way with several suggested stops. We stopped in Martinborough for lunch.

We only had one night in Wellington, staying at the Booklovers, which is run by Jane, who is a published author. She writes non-fiction, her specialist subject being the history of World War I and people's stories of that time. She got published after writing articles for magazines and they got spotted by the publishers. If she had any regrets it seemed to be allowing the publishers to do the editing - they did a bit of a rush job and it might have been better to pay someone to do a more thorough job.

Booklovers is more like being in someone's home than many of the places that we stayed in. There were books everywhere and a lot of clutter. Part of that was her works in progress, and some was due to the fact she had inherited a lot of stuff and hadn't managed to integrate it all yet. I don't mind a bit of clutter. It makes me feel at home.

Booklovers Bed and Breakfast, Wellington

Jane had plenty of suggestions of things we could do in Wellington. Arthur thought she was anxious to get rid of us, but I'm sure she was just being helpful. People must always want to know what the cool things to do are, especially if you're only there for one evening.

She showed us on a map how to get to the sea front by the bush path that began behind the house, and how to find a museum called Te Papa that is apparently very popular.

Up some quite steep paths, rewarded by fabulous views of the city, and then down again via stairs in the hillside. We asked a passer by if the stairs were a right of way and he said yes, but we still ended up in someone's garden. "It's not these stairs," she grumbled. We found the right stairs and walked along the sea front. 

Wellington

Busiest beach I've seen in this country so far. People roller skating. A sculpture of a whale's tail which we had to photograph and put on Facebook for the attention of our skiing buddy Mark because that is the name of his favourite run.

The Whale's Tail, Wellington

We only had an hour to look around Te Papa, and could only scratch the surface. There seemed to be four or five floors and we only had time to see one, which was the natural history of New Zealand bit. The entry was free so it didn't matter but it would have been nice to see a bit more.

We learned another new word: an op shop is a second hand clothes store, or charity shop.

We had dinner in the Hop Garden which was Jane's recommendation. The waitress came over and it sounded like she said "the fish of the day is turkey". Had we misheard and she really said DISH of the day? Or does turkey count as fish when it's almost Christmas? I ordered it to find out and it was definitely fish.