A step back in time....
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
5
84
Trip End
Ongoing
Napier,
New Zealand
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The next morning, I decided to take the 10 AM architectural tour from the visitors center. Our guide was very informative and quite charming. He told us that in 1931, Napier was practically destroyed by an earthquake that registered 7.8 on the Richter scale. Over the next 12 hours, the town experienced over 100 more earthquakes. Over 150 people died and many more were injured.
The town decided to immediately rebuild
park
. At the time, art deco was the newest architectural style. So they decided to do everything in art deco and claimed to be the "newest city on the globe." They built the town in 2 years which was unheard of at the time. They were able to expedite this process because it occurred during a depression so construction crews were ready to go back to work. During the architectural tour, I met Greg from California. He offered to drive me to some of the wineries which was very nice of him. I was so impressed that he was able to drive on the opposite side of the road with no problems. I didn't even bring my license because I know that I would probably get into a wreck.
Our first stop was at the Mission Estate winery which is the oldest one in New Zealand (established 1850). It was beautiful! The building itself was an old white mansion that sat on a small hill overlooking the vines. The wine was delicious. They were famous for their chardonnay. I sampled quite a few and had a hard time picking my favorite. The next one we went to was called Church road winery. It was not as picturesque as the first but the wine was still really good. After that, Greg dropped my off so that I could catch my late afternoon bus.
