For the Benefit of Mr Kite

One of Tom's most anticipated stops on this trip is Napier. Napier has two things going for it. Firstly, it's in the middle of New Zealand's first and some say the best wine producing areas and secondly, the town is full of Art Deco architecture thanks to an earthquake that flattened it in 1931. I have to say that Napier lives up to its reputation as the 'Art Deco City'. There are some amazing commericial buildings in the centre of town and some equally cool houses in the suburbs. The people in Napier are all very nice - probably because they live in a very nice town.

 

On our first day in Napier, we pretty much arrived. Walked around town, ate, slept. Our second day was much more full on. As I mentioned above, Napier is in the middle of a wine producing area and a very good one at that so our second day involved touring wineries. Unlike most people who would do this in a car or on a bus with lots of other tourists, Tom and I had decided early on that we would tour the wineries by bike. The good thing about doing it this way is that once you reach the winery, you appreciate the wine a lot more. Napier is pretty much flat so technically the ride shouldn't be too hard we also had good bikes with lots of gears etc. However, the day we went out, it was blowing a gale and for half of the day we were riding into the wind. Despite that and the 35kms we cycled it was really good. I highly recommend donig the wineries like this.

 

We liked Brookfields - the wine tasting man there was really nice and very helpful. On the other hand, Mission Estate (New Zealand's oldest and probably most picturesque winery) wasn't very good. Firstly, the lady asked us what kind of wines we would like to try. I said: "Surprise me". She said: "What type of wines are you interested in buying". We said: "Don't know". I thought: "Isn't that why we're tasting them?". She said: "What type of wines do you like?" We said: "We like them all". It was about now that she gave up on us, and we gave up on her. We were expecting her to recommend wines for us to choose like the other wineries but obviously, that's not the deal there.

 

After our ride we were very, very sore and the next day we were driving out to Tongario National Park for Christmas. We survived another day on the crazy New Zealand roads. At one point the highway we were travelling on intersected with another major highway. You would expect that these two highways would have some kind of sophisticated traffic management system in place to handle the merging of two large flows of cars. Perhaps overpasses, or even a roundabout. But no. It was a stop sign. Very cleaver Kiwis.

 

Tongario is really nice. It's very different to most of the other landscapes around New Zealand. It's not barren, but it's bleak but stunningly spectacular. It's a major volcanic area in New Zealand and it contains three active volcanoes. The biggest, Mt Ruapehu last erupted in 1996 and Mt Tongario in 1926. They didn't do anything silly while we were there. A lot of the evil bits of Lord of the Rings was filmed around here and its easy to tell why.

 

We stayed at the Chateau Tongario which is an old hotel built in the 1920's that is very swanky. We had a great room - we could see Mt Ruapehu from our bed which was great because it still had a lot of snow on it. So technically, Tom and I had a white Christmas. The day we arrived we went for a walk to some waterfalls which were really pretty and then I went for a swim in the hotel pool and a sweat in the sauna. Capped the day off with extensive bathrobe wearing.

 

The second day was Christmas morning - yay! Was tempted to call my brother when we woke up (around 8am NZ time) just to stick with traditions but thought that was mean. We went for a walk in the morning, up through some really cool volcanic landscapes. More Lord of the Rings scenery (when we got back one of the movies was playing on the movie channel in the hotel and there was a shot that done exactly where we had been walking). There was a mountain to climb (I say climb, because it was pretty much climbing - no real trail marked and lots of rocks to scramble over). I made it about halfway before my bike weary body gave up. Tom climbed to the top and went inside a volcanic crater. We walked back down to the car and headed back to the hotel to wait for our Christmas dinner.

 

Christmas dinner was really nice. It was the world's biggest buffet. All the usual things, but the thing that was really cool was the salmon. It was whole and you just used tongs to pick up the bits you wanted. Tom had two platefuls of food - I had one. I was saving myself for dessert. There was Christmas pudding, cheesecake, cakes, and my favourite, pavlova and custard. I will admit that I had three helpings of dessert. One pudding (small piece), custard, and berries, one pavlova and custard and one just pavlova. Very full that night - slept terribly.

 

Next morning we were up pretty early to start our drive to Rotorua. I know everyone says it but Rotorua smells. However, despite the smell there are some really cool things there. We stopped at Wai-o-tapu on our way in and that was really cool. Words will not do this place justice. Some of the cool things we say there though were, chlorine pools, sulphur crystals and a lake that hissed due to carbon dioxide being released from the water. There are some really cool pictures from here.

 

Rotorua also has a really good museum. It's set in an old thermal spa from back in the days when they thought smelly water to cure everything. The displays were good and it gave a really interesting history of the area. There's even a cinema that shows a movie about the eruption of a volcano in the area which did a lot of damage and killed a lot of people in the late nineteenth century where the chairs shakequite violently. It was fun. After the museum, we went for a swim in a thermally heated pool (not a thermal pool - I don't believe that smelly water is to be bathed in). One of the pools was about 40 degrees. Very warm.

 

I woke up on the second day feeling very light-headed. I think this was because of the smelly air. It could have also been from the dodgy place we stayed at. For most of our trip, we've been staying in YHA establishments as you can expect a certain level of quality from them. YHA Rotorua doesn't even come near this level. We had a tiny double room and it honestly felt like we were on school camp (just replaced the double bed with bunks). The pillows they supplied us with looked and felt like they were about 20 years old and offered absolutely no support. The linen wasn't much better either. Firstly, it didn't match and secondly, one of the pillowcases was so faded that I thought Tom was putting it on inside out. So I really didn't enjoy YHA Rotorua - don't stay there.