Wellington - Napier
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2006
1
86
156
Trip End
Aug 16, 2006
Napier,
North Island,
New Zealand
Monday, April 17, 2006
We headed straight out of Wellington and drove for just over a hour before reaching Mount Bruce Wildlife Reserve, where we paid $4 dollars each to have the opportunity to see some of New Zealand's rarest birds (and no they weren't stuffed and behind glass). Yet again many of New Zealand's native birds are highly endangered, due to loss of habitat and yet again creatures being introduced by settlers in the 19th and 20th century. The reserve had a breeding programme, that was trying to re-introduce endangered breeds into safe areas of the country, but it is a long and difficult process
01) Rimutaka Summit
.The creature that Lynne and I were both desperate to see was the Kiwi, which is now virtually impossible to see in the wild because it has lost 90% of its population in the last 30 years. It's a nocturnal creature, so we entered a darkened area, which had a huge natural habitat behind glass and under infra-red light. We peered into the murky light as our eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and were amazed to see a Kiwi bird about an inch away from us on the other side of the glass. It's a much bigger bird than I expected to see, for some reason I was expecting to see something quite small and fluffy, but maybe these were only available to buy in every gift shop in New Zealand. It was great to see it going about its everyday business, completely oblivious to the fact that we were watching it the other side of the glass. We spent a good fifteen minutes there just watching it dig around with its big beak, it really would be a tragedy if this bird was to die out in the wild.
We had lunch, sat looking over a lovely bird sanctuary area which had its own pond and babbling brook, before it was time to head reluctantly back to the bus. The next couple of hours were spent finding out that 99.9% of all shops and businesses are shut on Easter Sunday. All the towns that we passed through were completely shutdown, it was like passing through ghost towns, we didn't see a soul
02) Mount Bruce Nature Reserve
. What was a real shame was the fact that the Tui brewery that we were going past usually offer three beer samples for $2 dollars was closed as well. So we moved onto the next town for an ice cream, but when we found that shop was shut too, we decided to just carry on until we reached Napier, in the hope that things would be better there.Napier is a beautiful town, with many of the buildings being built in the art deco style. The reason for this was the town was virtually completely destroyed in an earthquake that struck it in February 1931. As they had to rebuild the town from scratch, it was decided that they would build all the new buildings in the style of the day which was art deco. We drove along the sea front and finally saw some other people, as well as a big religious rock festival and an outdoor market. We were dropped off by Scotty in town and then the hostel mini-bus came down the hill to pick us up. The road to the hostel was too narrow for the bus to fit up, so the mini bus took us to our hostel for the night, which was the building that had previously been Napier prison (until 1993).
Although the hostel was fairly basic, it of course offered the unique experience of spending the night in a prison cell (voluntarily!), as well as lots of amusing photo opportunities; including us having our mugshots taken and the "don't drop the soap" message that was on the sign that pointed the way to the showers
03) What we see from the window everyday
. As our room was a converted cell, there was nothing more in it than a double bed and a light. We also noticed the immediate potential for some joker to lock us into our cell, as the bolt and latch were on the outside of the door where we wouldn't be able to reach it if it was pulled across. We had a quick walk around the prison and came across a lovely cat called Basil and the Hanging Yard where four people had been executed (amusingly the hanging rope was now used to hold up the hostel washing line).We walked into town with Scotty and did a quick lap of the town centre, it was quick because the few shops that had been open had now shut for the night. To get over this disappointment, we headed to the Breaker's Bar, where we discovered that if you ordered a meal or a snack, you could then order alcohol and continue drinking there for the rest of the night. Which is an obvious dodge around the strict no alcohol serving rule that is enforced on Easter Sunday. The whole of the bus (all nine of us) came down to the bar and we had a very pleasant evening talking about our experiences on the road and finding out that Scotty was a bit of a jack the lad (by the sounds of it he doesn't very often have his driver's room to himself!). For the first time we got to properly talk to some Scottish twins (Izzy and Maz) who had been on the Milford Sound trip at the same time as us, who were both really nice
04) Napier Prison Hostel main entrance
. Wisely, this time Lynne decided not to start sharing bottles of wine with a couple of Scots.The night took a bit of an unpleasant turn later on, when we started getting hassled by three Irish residents who must live in New Zealand and had sat at a table near us. We'd been having a conversation about how every country heard foreign accents and couldn't really tell them apart, as well as generally having a laugh at the stereotypes that each country was given. For some reason the Irish thought we were taking the piss out of them and started shouting abuse at us, but mainly at our driver Scotty. Lines like "bloody backpackers go home were used" and "isn't it funny how you come to the other side of the world and just sit with other English people" were used. Both quite ironic statements because a) they obviously hadn't been born in New Zealand and b) around the table there were two Canadians, three Germans, two English, two Scots, an American and an authentic New Zealander. Scotty got very offended when they called him "a pom" and responded in kind with a couple of insults of his own.
In the end we decided just to ignore them, which seemed to wind them up even more because we could hear them muttering away until we left and made the long climb back up to the prison gates. Fortunately there were toilet and shower blocks in the prison, there wasn't the additional realism of a bucket to pee into during the night. I had the best nights' sleep that I'd had in a long time, our area of the prison was dead silent and although some people found it a bit spooky being inside, I slept soundly.
