Napier, New Zealand

Days 67-69 October 31 - November 2

We were a bit sad to leave Taupo. It was such a great place, both our AirBnb and the town. But we were also excited to move on to Napier and the next chapter in our adventure. We traveled through the mountains and arrived at rainy Napier, a port city on the eastern coast of the north island. After arriving we spent some time on Tuesday, October 31 exploring the town and looking for Halloween festivities. Other than a dog with a skeleton costume, we didn’t see much in terms of Halloween. But some kids we saw on the street said they’d be Trick-or-Treating later. 

Wednesday, Nov 1st was a beautiful, sunny day and we took full advantage. We started the morning walking through the courtyard and along the coast. The pier provided some great ocean views.

We continued the morning with a 6 mile hike up to Bluff Hill Outlook, a scenic overlook of the city and harbor. It was quite a climb but worth it for the views. One thing we noted was the number of lumber trucks arriving at the port to unload their loads of lumber. It was quite remarkable.

As we descended Bluff Hill, we ended up at the Perfume Point, a beautiful beach area, and spent some time walking around. We headed back to town via another route that went on Shakespeare Rd., a hike up some inclines but nothing like Bluff Hill Outlook. 

We grabbed some sandwiches from a local bakery and went back to our apartment for a nice lunch “at home”. We had booked a walking tour for the afternoon and were looking forward to walking another 2 hours.

Napier is known for the massive earthquake, and subsequent fires, that leveled the downtown area of the city in 1931. When the city planners gathered afterwards, they decided to rebuild in the Art Deco style that was very popular at the time. Louis Hay was one of major architects for the rebuilt buildings. This style of architecture is prevalent in the city even today as the Art Deco Trust, formed in 1987, works hard to preserve it. The idea for the Art Deco Trust started in 1985 when a group of concerned citizens got together to discuss how their buildings’ style and architecture were being lost through renovations and other ways the building owners weren’t “honoring the Art Deco style” of the originals. They expected around 100 people to show up as they planned a walking tour of their city. Over 1,100 people showed up and thus the idea for the Trust was born.

Our walking tour was fabulous. The docent was very knowledgeable about the style and all the buildings that represent it. We won’t go through all of the points of our walking tour, but here are a few ideas to consider as you look at the photos below of the Art Deco architecture.  

The Art Deco style began in Paris in 1910 and flourished in Europe and the U.S. during the 1920’s and 1930’s. What you’ll see in the photos below of Napier’s downtown buildings that represent this style of architecture include (but not a complete list by any means):

Bold geometric forms like triangles, squares, chevrons, zigzags

Speed lines, straight lines of relief across the building

Corbeled arches

Chiseled fascia with stylized sunburst window frames

Lead glass windows that allow light to enter the building. These can be inside on the ceiling or outside at the top of the wall

Setbacks that create a stepped outline in the front facade

Low-relief decorative panels that can be found at entrances, around windows, along roof edges

For those architects in the family (and anyone else interested) here is a link to about 100 pictures of the tour’s architectural sights.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10ksjm3h5l9cRRRCRUJFFhNa801wkUjzD

Thursday, November 2nd we decided to do some wine tasting. Hawke’s Bay is one of New Zealand’s best known areas for vineyards and wineries. We chose some of the smaller, mom & pop type wineries including tastings at Brookfields Winery, Askerne Cellars, and Trinity Hill with lunch at Oak Estate. A few wine purchases might have been made. :-)

New Zealand was directly hit by Cyclone Gabrielle in February of this year (2023).  It was the worst cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere and Hawke’s Bay was at its epicenter.  When we first drove into Napier there was a large area totally devastated and un-reclaimable.  Everything was destroyed including homes, orchards, farms and the land itself.  This also impacted numerous wineries including the first one we visited.  Their story was much better than most but safe to say do not purchase NZ wine from 2023.  The best recent vintages are 2019, 2020 and 2021.

In the afternoon Carol and Mickey tried to get some beach time in but wind and clouds made it a bit too cool so we packed it in and began getting ready for a long day of travel tomorrow.  Our next destination is Picton and will require about 5 hours of driving and a 3.5 hour ferry ride across Cook Strait to the South Island.