NZ2006 Wellington to Napier

19May06 Friday

After staying in Lower Hutt last night the challenge was to find our way to Highway 2 north.  We headed back towards Wellington as the itinerary called for and found a sign for Hwy 2 but after a couple of blocks I didn’t believe it was the right direction (but it really was) and to make a long story short got really messed up.  We ended up on Hwy 1 somehow and decided to stick with that going northwest until we could get another highway headed back east to the Hutt valley and onto Hwy 2.  This gave us the opportunity to see a little more of scenic New Zealand than we planned on.

 

The first 40 kms or so out of Wellington north is a “white knuckler”.  And we thought those roads were over with!  The person in the passenger seat position gets a real view on this section.   Someone last year described the guardrails in this section as 2x2’s stuck in the ground with number 10 wire strung between them.  Joan really liked this stretch of highway (being facetious).

 

After about the first 50 kms or so the road straightened out and we even had some really long straight stretches.  As we got closer to Napier we started getting into the serious wine country and thousands of acres of vineyards.  Some of the names were recognizable.  Montana was one of the names that I remembered from the store shelves at home mainly because of the state of Montana.  The vineyards are well manicured and taken care of and are beautiful to just look at.  The rows are very straight and look like they were laid out with surveying instruments.  In between the rows they mow the grass and till the soil in line with the vines and it is just picture perfect.

 

A golf course on the way to Napier had an interesting array of mowing machines.  They had toput electric fences around the greens to keep the mowers off.  Check the photo.

 

We located the campervan park with no problems.  The directions worked well for that and we remembered some of the area from last year.  A few of us decided to look for dinner in town and we ended up down at the waterfront at the Acqua Seafood Restaurant that some of us had eaten at last year and the meal was excellent once again.  Some had the fish and chips and Carl had the swordfish.

 

Napier is a city that was destroyed by an earthquake in the era of Art Deco and the town was rebuild over a short period of time in that style.  They are maintaining the Art Deco style and even building some new buildings in that style.  The city administrators have found that it is a drawing card for visitors to come and see the city.

 

Back at the campground we found that the amenities and facilities were very nice and that they even supplied stacks of towels and washcloths for their guests in the restrooms.

We gave them a big thank you for that when we checked out the next morning.