The east coast seaport of Napier sits in the lower curve of Hawke’s Bay and is the center of export for wool, fruit, timber, and other resources brimming from the bounty of New Zealand’s countryside. In 1931, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook Hawke’s Bay for close to three minutes leaving 256 people dead and complete devastation in the township of Napier and all nearby settlements. The sturdy New Zealanders rebounded well from the quake and built Napier back using art deco architecture that has become famous worldwide and draws thousands of tourists every year for a major art deco festival. The Napier area is also a world-renowned wine region. The lower hillsides and valleys are full of vineyards with the leaves of the vines turning burnished gold in the onset of autumn and thick rose bushes covered with bright red blooms planted at the end of each row.
We pulled into Napier mid-afternoon after a four-hour drive from Tauranga on two-lane highways that undulated across green hills and cut through mountain ranges that grew in height as we traveled south. We passed several volcanic peaks in the distance, their steep cones covered with snow and cut off cleanly by powerful, centuries old eruptions. New Zealand leads the world in wool production, and huge flocks of sheep became more prominent as we drove farther away from civilization. I never get tired of saying, “Look kids, sheep!” as we’re driving, especially when they’re trying to sleep. I may have to scale back my teasing in order to avoid a mutiny this late in the game. The drive was so remote that there was only one gas station between Tauranga and Napier, which fortunately we found at the midpoint of the journey. Thankfully they had an attached Subway which served an excellent meatball sub and warm chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven.
We found our house located in a quiet subdivision just north of the downtown area and right across the street from the ocean. The house is owned by Andy, a sixty-something widower and retired officer from the New Zealand Army. He’s a big friendly guy with a toothy grin and a crushing handshake that I was just barely able to match and save face. He tromped ahead of us up the stairs to show us our quarters for the next few days. We have the second floor of the house to ourselves, which is one large room with windows on every wall and a big bathroom boasting a strong shower. We have complete access to the kitchen and anything else we want downstairs including a big flat screen TV in the living room which is lined with leather recliners and walls full of military memorabilia from three generations of service. Andy’s grandfather fled Ireland with his young wife after the Easter Rising of 1916 and relocated to the New Zealand countryside where he became a successful farmer and father to eight children, Andy’s father being the youngest. Andy himself was the second youngest in his family of eight. His father was a distinguished soldier who took part in the Guadalcanal Campaign during World War II, and his many colorful medals are now proudly displayed in Andy’s dining room on the wall behind a thick oak refectory table.
Andy has been an AirBnB host for a little over a year, and his extra room stays booked due to the reasonable rate he charges for a place on the seashore close to town. He told us that he doesn’t do it for the money since he doesn’t need it, but for the company of travelers coming from all parts of the globe. He provides plenty of privacy in his home for guests, but he’s an excellent conversationalist with loads of great stories, and he’s always ready for a good talk about news of the world. Andy gave us the lowdown about fun things to see around the town of Napier including architecture, aquariums, seawall strolls, and scenic peaks—plenty to keep us busy for the two days we have to spend in Hawke’s Bay.
Andy and the gang
The sun came up bright and intense on our first morning and quickly warmed the room from the slight chill leftover from the cool nighttime temperatures. We took turns getting up and showering and enjoyed a breakfast of cornflakes and bananas downstairs with Andy who placed a pot full of freshly ground coffee beans on the stove to percolate—I may start referring to him as “Saint Andy.” Sufficiently fueled, we boarded the Corolla and set out for the peak of Te Mata, a popular scenic vista about thirty minutes south of Napier on the outskirts of the town of Hastings.
The ride took us on winding roads through the countryside and small neighborhoods along the way shielded from the highway by thick juniper hedges with variegated vines of ivy pushing through the lower branches. The autumn sun sat lower in the deep blue sky and created longer shadows at the foot of the trees tipped with red and yellow and faded green. A narrow road off the main highway provided access to the Te Mata peak, and a few minutes later we were standing at the summit with a view over Hawke’s bay on one side and a sighting of snow-covered Mount Ngauruhoe, the stand-in for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies, in the far distance. The Te Mata peak juts out at the end of a hog’s back ridge covered in green grass and spreads out to rolling hills beyond, and the long white clouds of New Zealand settle around the surrounding mountain ranges. It was almost too much to take in at once, but we all agreed that this view was one of the most impressive we’ve seen.
We drove out of the clouds and headed back to the art deco buildings of Napier and spent the afternoon shopping and walking the palm-tree-lined streets stopping for a late lunch at an excellent little bakery we discovered. Since we don’t have to worry about baggage restrictions anymore, we bought a few souvenir t-shirts, but ended up feeling guilty because it had been so long since we purchased anything for ourselves. I hope we can shake that feeling in a few weeks when we get home and have to buy all new wardrobes. I must confess that it’s been nice not to worry about up-to-date clothing for the past ten months, and I’m not quite ready to start looking “presentable” again.
We had the most fun in the Possum World shop that sold trendy sweaters made from a blend of merino wool and possum pelts. The opossum is considered a major pest in New Zealand, which is overrun with a myriad of marsupials that look slightly different from the North American variety. The store had a small room in the back dedicated to possum puns, my favorite being a chorus line of stuffed varmints singing “On the Road Again.”
On the road again
Napier
We had a late Pizza Hut supper and watched a few videos before turning in that night and slept in a little later the next morning with the National Aquarium the only item on the agenda for the day. I placed a moratorium on aquarium visits a few years ago after once again dropping major bucks on the one at Myrtle Beach in a desperate attempt to find things to do during a rainy vacation. These places are all expensive and have the same shark tunnel, the same touch tank, the same fish on display, and I could walk through just about any one of them blindfolded and point to where the clown fish are circling the yellow coral. There are a few exceptional fish bowls like the one at Fort Fisher in North Carolina, but even the kids roll their eyes at the mention of a possible aquarium visit. So, why the mandatory visit to the aquarium in Napier? Of all places, it’s one of the only locations in New Zealand where a tourist can view the iconic national symbol of the land, the kiwi.
The admission to the National Aquarium of New Zealand was not quite as high as its American counterparts, so we had the place almost to ourselves midweek in the early afternoon. I was surprisingly impressed with the place. Among the obligatory fish displays, they had a tankful of wicked-looking piranhas, a pickled giant squid, and a penguin pool full of cute little flightless birds. There was an enormous loggerhead turtle sharing a tank with a moray eel that had pure malice emanating from its countenance, and the shark tunnel was was full of toothy predators and other fish that go practically unnoticed among their rock-star tank mates.
At the back of the aquarium in a faux forest behind three large panels of plexiglass, the flightless kiwis lurked in limited light due to the aquarium staff faking nighttime so these nocturnal critters will come out to play for the visitors. On our first pass, we couldn’t see the birds, and my disdain for all-things-zoo-related meter started rising, but we came back a half hour later and found these chicken-sized birds romping through the fake bush, playing and screeching through their long thin scimitar-shaped bills. They put on a fantastic show, and we were genuinely enthralled by these birds which made the price of aquarium admission seem a mere pittance. Flush with the sight of a national symbol at play, we stayed for the shark feeding at the hands of a chum-wielding scuba diver, strolled for a bit on the stone-covered beach behind the aquarium. Then we made our way back home for our last evening at Andy’s place where we prepared for a long drive the next day and ferry passage to the south island.
Piranha
I made them do this
Next morning, we once again felt the sadness that comes with travel as we had to say goodbye to our host and friend, but Andy helped ease my pain by brewing one more pot of strong coffee for the road, bless him. We shoved our bags into the Corolla and headed south as the sun quickly rose over the mountains and dried up the remnants of an overnight rain. The Inter Islander ferry makes a three-hour journey between the north and south islands of New Zealand several times a day. We had reserved passage on the 2:45 crossing from Wellington to Picton. The only things standing between us and the ferry was a four-hour drive from Napier and the return of the rental car since the car companies don’t allow cars in their fleets on the boat. We started out with plenty of time to spare because a lot can happen during a four-hour drive, and it’s a good thing we did, because we encountered multiple areas of road construction and one closing of a major pass through a gorge which sent us on a thirty-minute detour over the mountains.
Driving on the left side has been easier for me in New Zealand mostly due to roads in good condition, wide lanes, and clearly-stated signs that leave little ambiguity for the twitchy traveler. Even though we’ve traveled through a few hairy mountain passes, I have yet to feel the horror and wracking tension I experienced driving through all of Ireland’s bucolic hills and dales which has taken me ten months to forget—almost. Driving in New Zealand is easier because rounding every curve in the road is like turning the page of an exquisitely illustrated book about every pleasant aspect of life in the country.
The road from Napier to Wellington offered views of vineyard-filled valleys bordered by green hills with sheep and cattle grazing in the thick green grass. Distant mountain ranges with snow-capped volcanic peaks made appearances through long low clouds, and wide plains with hawks circling the sky quickly narrowed to tight gorges full of silver ferns and ancient gnarled hardwoods. The tight curves through the low hills bordered small farms marked by weathered split rail fences and apple orchards that surrounded old farmhouses with clapboard siding painted white and light yellow. The drive seemed more like a lazy stroll down a country lane through wooded dells with crunchy leaves underfoot, ripe pumpkins in the gardens, and the tang of woodsmoke in the crisp air that ties every autumn reverie together.
Saw this on the road - brilliant
Even with several stops along the way, we made it to Wellington with plenty of time to return the car and check in at the ferry terminal. We boarded the boat and claimed sofas in the middle of the ship on the cafeteria deck and stretched out for naps as the large ship made easy work of pushing through the swells in the Cook Strait. The northern tip of the southern island is an explosion of smaller islands that looks similar to the southern section of the Grecian Peloponnese. Views of mountainsides sweeping up on both sides of the narrow passage filled the long windows along our deck.
We enjoyed a light meal from the cafeteria just before the ferry docked in Picton where we quickly collected our luggage, picked up another rental car, and made it to our house on the outskirts of town. Our host, Wayne greeted us at the curb and ushered us upstairs to the apartment over the garage in the rear of his house. Wayne and his wife, Lynette, have been AirBnB hosts for a long time, and it showed by their attention to detail right down to the fudge-covered rice crispy treats waiting for us in the fridge. We got settled quickly, and Deena and I ran back out for groceries. We noticed the faint outline of the moonlit mountain ridges surrounding our neighborhood and wondered about the views that would greet us with the sunrise.
Our view in the morning
Turns out those views were pretty spectacular, and we spent the majority of the morning out on the balcony drinking pressed coffee and speculating on how the local gentry makes a living in Picton to support a lifestyle that includes panoramic mountain vistas. We finally made our way into the town center, picked up lunch, got Joseph’s hair cut, and drove twenty kilometres along an extremely winding road to a trailhead for the Queen Charlotte Track which follows the coastline along several bays of the Marlborough Sound for seventy-one kilometers—we hiked four.
They were certainly pristine kilometers, though, and we got a good workout wending our way through the bush on a rocky trail lined with some of the most beautiful silver ferns we’ve seen to date. Soon the woods opened up to a small cove filled with turquoise water right up to the edge of low mountains covered with a thick tree canopy—and there was the goal of our trek, the shores of Davis Bay. We stayed long enough to rest and watch several species of waterfowl flying over the bay, and a heron-looking bird took its time swimming past us and diving underwater looking for food. The late afternoon sun was slowly dipping behind the mountain tops which sent long shadows across the trail; so we hiked back to the car park pleased with our excursion into the wilds of the northern end of southern New Zealand—or something like that.
View from the trail
Silver fern
More silver ferns
As I sat typing this last bit, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake ripped across the Waikawa Valley and gave our house a pretty good jolt. It seems that New Zealand sits on the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, and earthquakes are almost everyday occurrences in some parts of the country. That shake a few minutes ago makes earthquake number three that we’ve ridden out on this trip, and we’re not getting used to them by any means. If the countryside hasn’t split in two by morning, we’re heading out for another-four hour drive that will place us on the west coast of the southern island in a house for one night that’s completely off the grid—no grocery stores for miles, solar-powered electricity, water from the creek and runoff, heat from a woodstove, and no wifi. I never thought I would reach a point in my life where the thought of no wifi gives me more trepidation than the thought of no food.
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