Woke up to perfectly clear skies! The further North we go the better it gets. We were slow to start as we wanted to go to a museum in town that didn’t open until 10:00. On the way out we dropped into a store called the warehouse. We had seen them all over the place but weren’t sure what they sold. Turns out it is the NZ equivalent of a small Wal-Mart.
Next stop was a museum dedicated to sheep shearing and the NZ wool industry in general. There were movies showing the shearing process as well as replicas of sheep shearing sheds. Amazingly a good shearer could shear over 300 sheep in an 8 hour day, using only a set of power clippers. The museum was well worth the visit.
Next we started a slow trek north to the town of Napier, tonight’s destination. Unfortunately, the east coast has far less (for us) to see than the West coast, so again there were no planned stops on the way. In reality there really was nowhere worth stopping at.
Again the scenery was mixed; we went inland and climbed gently to around 1000’ and then cruised along straight and level roads for a while. The Ruahine mountain range was visble on the left, and we got , hopefully, our last glimpse of snow. We descended more raoidly than we climbed, with a few hair pin bends to keep me awake.
We entered Napier via a palm lined street, very reminiscent of some California towns.
View from the Passenger Seat – Entering Napier
Napier is billed as a town with plenty of Art-Deco. The original town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931, and was rebuilt copying the style used in Santa Barbara California following that cities earthquake in 1925.
Napier
- Napier
- Napier
- Napier
How any Motels make a profit when we stay, I don’t know. We (I) must burn up all the cost in electricity
Tapping into the Grid
We had our first problem with hotel bookings today, when we went to check-in there was no record of our booking. Unfortunately there were no more rooms left at the rate we had paid. The guy was good though, we got a 2 bedroom apartment with Jacuzzi for the same price.