Napier

Napier is a smallish town on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. We didn’t have a real plan for the day, but we were determined to give Liz the day off after a month of solo parenting. We’d found a local museum called the Faraday Museum built in an old power station that was supposed to be very interactive. That sounded like a good match for us, so that became our destination.

There was a mandatory shuttle ride to get out of the port, but it was only about ten minutes to the drop off point. From there we walked about 20 minutes to the museum. I was a little taken aback by how small it looked, but we went on in. I made a fool of myself by asking if they were open even though it was Sunday. The guy at the desk said yes, they were open, and it was Monday. It gets hard to keep the days straight.

The museum was small but packed with exhibits. The first room had the electrical double-whammy of a Van de Graaff Generator and a Tesla Coil. There were also things like a pneumatic tube messaging system, a manual typewriter that fascinated the boys, old telephones, and pinball machines (no quarters required!). We ran into Sarah and Mike there and wound up spending a couple of hours in the place.

It was a short stay in Napier, so with only a couple of hours left before all-aboard we could either go to lunch in town or just head back to the ship. We decided on the latter. We got our laps in after lunch then the afternoon was at leisure. Dinner was in the Grand Dining Room, then the boys and I attended a screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in the Insignia Lounge.Läs mer