Wellington/ Napier-North Island

The drive to Picton was very picturesque.  It lies within Marlborough Sounds, reminiscent of fiords in Norway.  Many houses cling to the hillsides and are only accessible by boat-quite idyllic.  After a night at the Backpackers hostel (Steve’s idea) – a weird place run by two elderly ladies who had definitely seen better days- like the building -we caught the 8am ferry to Wellington.  Hire cars are not allowed to cross so we had to organise all of our luggage between us.

Marlborough Sound views

The crossing was uneventful, the sea calm (Steve was still queasy, bless him!).  Having picked up the hire car in Wellington – a rather nice Toyota Corolla- we set off to see `Ta Papa”  Museum of New Zealand.  As it is half term here it was heaving with families.  We saw some very interesting displays on the geology of NZ and the real Webb Ellis trophy on display but neither of us felt it was as good as the Otago Museum in Dunedin.

Wellington at night

Wellington is the capital but it was a shock after the calm and quiet of South Island.  Lots of cars, high rise buildings and people.  We’d almost forgotten what that was like.  The next day we drove to Napier stopping off at the Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre a conservation project run by the Department of Conservation to return native birds at risk of extinction back to the wild.  We have both become rather attached to several native species including the Tui and the Takahe-a parrot like bird with lovely orange underwings.  We saw a brown kiwi; the centre takes eggs and hatches them before returning birds to the wild.  Kiwis are very vulnerable to predators as they don’t fly.  Only 10% of eggs laid hatch and survive. 

Napier was our destination, a delightful town full of art deco buildings built after the devastating earthquake which hit in 1930. It has some lovely gardens one of which contained a carillon which played old WW2 songs like “Pack up your troubles”, “Singing in the Rain” and “Bye Bye Blackbird”!! 

Napier's finesse

We decided to visit a winery since this area of Hawkes Bay is renowned for it’s wine and I’m a bit partial to grapes in this form!  We went for lunch to Mission Estate and very good the Beef fillet and Lamb were too as was the Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.  This is the oldest winery in NZ housed in an old seminary.  Bought some Gewurztraminer dessert wine for Xmas after tasting a few others!  Cheers all!

Off to Lake Taupo tomorrow.