Napier

Day 12:

Today we were in Napier which is on the east coast of North Island. It had been devastated by an earthquake in 1931 and completely re-built over the following two years. They had decided on a mixture of Art Deco and Spanish as apparently a lot of the fatalities during the earthquake had been caused by falling gargoyles and decorative stonework.

The locals are very into the Thirties theme with vintage cars, boaters, bow ties & blazers. We got a bus from the ship into the town and the bus driver gave us an interesting talk about the changes since the earthquake, which is obviously the only exciting thing ever to happen in Napier.

Napier is in a rather exposed bay, so was very windy. The harbour is man-made since the original harbour was filled up by the earthquake which raised the land by about 2 metres.

We wandered along the sea front and went to the aquarium which was good fun. The best bit was a darkened section where we saw kiwis rummaging through the undergrowth. The boys correctly pointed out that the kiwis had no business in an aquarium, but they aquarium had apparently merged with a bird exhibit some time before.

After that, we walked back through the main part of the town and saw some good examples of the new buildings as well as some good displays showing the same scenes before & after the earthquake.

We only had a half-day in Napier as it is quite a distance to our next port. However we were not able to leave on time as there was a 40 knot wind holding us side on to the dock and only a very narrow gap out of the harbour. However the wind died down and the tugs were able to pull us out and away we went.

Every night there is a late night snack i.e. a buffet meal, available between 11 pm and midnight. Tonight we had the Dutch Chocolate Extravaganza. This was set up all around the main swimming pool with a vast array of cakes and decorative chocolate constructions. There was far too much to eat and a lot of it was only for show, but it certainly looked impressive.