Villa Vista - B&B And Self Contained Apartment Napier

... relented and we were able to indulge in a bit of wine tasting at a local winery - yummy! And Paul led us on a walking tour of the town centre - it was flattened in a 1931 earthquake and was rebuilt in the fashionable Art-Deco style of the day. There's some cool buildings as a result for sure ay!

Later that evening (after Niki had completed a hard day's work!) it was off to Wellington for the weekend. We had a room booked at a hostel that ...

... of production before fine wine was considered.

2007 Cuve Pinot Gris - Quite lively nose. Ripe fruit, good acidity, pears.

2008 Pinot Gris - Creamy, not as lively, pears again on the nose. Straight forwards Pinot Gris, medium acidity.

2006 Cuve C******nay - Hand picked, whole bunch pressed. 14 months oak, 27% new. Creamy nose, good sweet fruit and oak. Good integration, ripe peach fruit with a touch of hazelnut.
Napier, North Island, New Zealand hadwin

Hello there from Hawkes Bay! Dad is still skiing in Switzerland, and we are still hanging out on the North Island. In the last few days, we have had lots of fun with Ginny. The most exciting thing we have done is watch Ginny sky dive! She jumped out of an airplane at 15,000 feet, almost three miles high! She had a professional with her, but it still look so scary, but also fun, from the video. We got to watch her suit up and ...

... 70 want to stay here and even longer if I could. Guess the major shareholder win, hahaha!!! Just finish a book yesterday night, title is Way of the peaceful warrior by Dan Millman. It was an inspirational book and was telling the author own journey to awakening. It was made into a film too and I find many lessons as described in the book interesting in the sense that it describe the many illusions that we human have in our life ...

... to plan until.........I checked the tickets and realised that we had in fact MISSED the bus we were suppose to get which was 8am. We rushed down to the Bus Station in the hope that we could still get the 10am bus out and pay for some new tickets...........NO that bus didn't exist anymore and the only one out of Napier was at 1.40pm and guess what....that was full. So with a ferry booked for the following day to the South Island our kind hosts Lord and Lady Lever ...

Hi folks, this is just a test to see how it works and to tell you that we are well advanced in our preparations for this trip: we have had nealy all our vaccinations and got precriptions for anti-malaria tablets and other essentials. I made up a zipped ...

Well Easter is fun in New Zealand because nearly everything is shut!!!! And they still have some pretty ridiculous draconian drinking laws. Anyway I can;t be bothered to type the story again so here is an exerpt from an email I sent to Gary the other day: "Anyway day one was a nightmare here but I'd rather not talk about that. Oh,.....you'd love New Zealand's Easter licensing laws!!! On Good Friday and Easter Sunday you can only ...

... views and they listened, with questions about how I was going to vote while I was over here, etc. The first winery we went to was call Mission Estate Winery, and as you can tell from my pictures, it is BEAUTIFUL. Definitely at the top of the list of wineries I have been to or seen pictures of. Here is a bit of history on the Mission, from a handout I recieved on our tour: (By the way, I feel like a tour guide!) Mission was established in 1851 (making it NZ's oldest ...

Napier is beautiful wine country. It is quite the destination place & if traveling thru the North Island a must see. A lovely city on the ocean with wonderful beaches. The feel is very much like South Beach in Fla. with its art deco buildings, its version of Lincoln Rd., lots of stores & wonderful archicture to view. We're ...

... bikammimine on päris tüütu! Järgmisel päeval käisime vaatamas merilõvisid ja delfiinishowd, mitte küll vabas looduses, vaid mereelukate loomaaias. Delfiin oli oma kõrge ea kohta väga sportlik ja tegi kõik trikid ilusti ära; vahepeal tilistas ajaviiteks kella, kutsudes inimesi tagasi enda juurde, sest kõik olid merilõvisid vaatama läinud :) Nii Napier kui Hastings on küll väikesed linnad, ent looduse poolest tasub sealt läbi käia küll. Ookean on ju nii rahustav :)