Up early for a few lengths of the not-quite-olympic-size swimming pool. There's a sign next to the pool asking people to take a shower before bathing 'using soap and water and paying particular attention to your bottom'.
Love it. We're definitely staying another night.
Hiked up the 1000 metre Te Mata Peak in the morning. Commanding a spectacular view over the surrounding plains and Hawke Bay this sacred Maori site succeeded in both knocking and knacking us out.
Also had time to visit the Aritaki Honey Centre before lunch. This was more fun than you might imagine; they have a glass covered cross-section of a hive where you can spy on all the bee action. We then sat through a 10 minute bee movie, studied a poster depicting bee physiology and finally took our places for the big bee lecture.
Few people escape without buying some kind of bee paraphanalea from the gift shop. Wend included.
In the afternoon we went into Napier, a town famed for its many fine Art Deco builings. Much of the centre was wiped out in a big earthquake in 1931 meaning the subsequent years of rebuilding coincided with the period when Deco was all the rage.
Its great.
The main shopping areas and promenade remain largely unspoilt, my only gripe being the intrusion of contemporary signage at street level. The golden arches of MacBloodyDonalds causing particular offence.
Also enjoyed a round of crazy golf on the sea-front. After a storming start complacency set in and I almost allowed Wend to catch me on the back 9. Almost.
1 comment:
Rotorua smeels of eggy pumps no?
chefx
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