Napier

Napier, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
Saturday, November 16, 2013

Saturday 16 November

We just love Napier. It has an elegance and timeless quality about it, in no small part due to its extraordinary architecture. Peter and I joined an Art Deco Walking Tour this morning and were lucky enough to be guided by a retired architect, who had been Chairman of the Art Deco Association. A charming fellow, who really knew his stuff. Napier was raised to the ground in 1931 by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale - Big. The townspeople set about rebuilding their town with the now added advantage of the land being raised 2mtrs as a result of the quake, giving them a much larger land mass to play with. This was of course the hey day of The Art Deco period (between the wars) , so consequently the whole CBD was expanded and rebuilt in that style. Amazingly, the town has managed to retain 140 buildings and now has the largest collection of AD buildings in the world. I had only seen the odd building in this style before and it's not until you see a whole planned town, that you begin to realise how ground breaking as a style it must have been at the time and how attractive. Today being Saturday, there were cars of the age driving through the streets. There were lots of small interesting shops and for the first time on this trip I felt like a browse, but luckily for Peter there was insufficient time. I know, I'm losing my grip- where will it all end?
We did pop into one of the supermarkets on the way back to the hotel with some trepidation, it being prime time on a Saturday morning and images of piled trolleys and grumpy shoppers at Tescos flashed into the mind. To our astonishment it was practically empty, we could find all we needed and pay without any hassle. We came out shell shocked and had to find a strong cup of coffee to recover.
This afternoon was the first of our planned Grape Escapes. We were collected from our hotel at 12.30 in a small coach, the back of which was already filled with young ladies, who looked as if they could be heading for a day trip of the lady Licence Victuallers Assn. We hadn't gone half a mile before PL leaned over and whispered 'do you think it's going to be this noisy all afternoon'. I whispered back 'noisier!'. He turned a whiter shade of pale. We stopped yet again in a small cull de sac of houses when yet more young things piled out of houses in skimpy frocks, tottering heels & in some cases complete with fascinators! We now have a full bus of 24 and apart from Greg the driver and organiser and Peter and Reg, all were female! South Wootton Wine Group eat your heart out (well the male half anyway). We all had to introduce ourselves in modern fashion, so amidst the Shelley's, Raquel's and Tanya's there were Dulcie, Peter, Geraldine and Reg. I'm not sure who was the more surprised. We visited 3 Hawkes Bay Vineyards or Wineries as they are known here. The sun continued to pour down and the afternoon just got noisier and noisier as the wines started to loosen a few tongues, that weren't slack already. Once the crowd adjusted to the idea of these old fogies in their midst, they became very welcoming and chatty and we ended up having to have a group photo taken with Peter and Reg overwhelmed by female lushness(is there such a word, or has the wine coddled my thought processes?) The wineries were a revelation. We tried around 8 wines in each one , plus some local olive oils and cheeses. If only there was no airline weight restriction! The tally of bottles and cases of wine bought increased as we moved on, until every time we went round a corner there was mass clinking. We did succumb and buy some lovely Sauvignon Blanc to take with us and drink at our chill out stop at Furness Lodge, on Queen Charlottes Sound, in a few days time. The winery was Ngatarawa and the setting was simply beautiful. I will post a couple of pics for you to see. It was a fun afternoon and when we dropped back at our hotel we were clapped and cheered off the coach. It is most noticeable how friendly everyone is here. Strangers still say good morning in the street and stop to help you out if you look lost. The work/life balance is spot on and it does make one nostalgic for more simple times.
On returning to Napier we were in need of sustenance to soak up all that alcohol and Yep, you've guessed it, we headed straight to the nearest Fish and Chip shop and ate them out of the paper sitting at a picnic table by the beach. It was a glorious evening and all seemed right with the world. One night fine dining par excellence, the next F&C on the beach!Meer informatie