Napier, Hawkes Bay
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2007
1
9
91
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Napier,
New Zealand
Thursday, August 30, 2007
We stayed in the Criterion Art Deco hostel. It's right in the centre of Napier, and it used to be a hotel, but now has good value rooms, and large communal areas. There are 2 tv lounges, a large kitchen, dining area and another lounge with a pool table. There is also a cat that wanders about, and likes to be made a fuss of. We stayed in a double room without ensuite, but our room did have a basin in it. The ensuite rooms we have been told are really nice, but a little bit more expensive, so we didn't take the added luxury this time
Art Deco Buildings
. We will be back though!On Wednesday morning we had a walk down Marine Parade, which is a 2km long boulevard alongside the beach. Unfortunately the beach in Napier is shingly, and it's unsafe to swim in the waters due to the surf and powerful riptides. It's still a very pleasant stroll down Marine Parade. Along Marine Parade we saw the statue of Pania of the Reef, a siren of Maori legend. A bit further on is the sunken gardens, and further still is the Spirit of Napier statue. There are also other attractions such as Marineland and the National Aquarium of New Zealand, which we may have looked at, but we were booked on a wine tour for the afternoon.
There are several wine tours to choose from, and we went to the i-site on the Tuesday evening to book ours. We chose the Grape Escape tour, and we were picked up at 1pm. Normally wine tours tend to be quite busy but we were in luck as it was just the two of us and our host, Greg. Greg used to work in the UK at Oddbins and he had a lot of local knowledge which he shared with us on the way round the wineries.
We went to 4 wineries, as well as having a quick tasting at a liquor shop
Criterion Art Deco Backpackers
. The wineries we went to were Matariki, Ngatarawa, Vidal and Te Mata. The guys at the Matariki winery seemed to have the most knowledge about the wines and how they were produced, but the lady at Vidal was really friendly and we both liked the wines from there. At Stables, we had some cheese as well, provided by Greg, and it is amazing how much difference food makes to how the wine tastes. I'm not a red wine fan, but drinking merlot whilst eating cheese made the wine a lot more drinkable. By the end of the tour we had bought 4 bottles of wine, and some cheese, and gained a lot more knowledge about wine! They do cheese with cumin seeds in it over here, and it is really really tasty!In the evening, we had a couple of drinks and a meal in the bar underneath the hostel. It's very reasonably priced, and they have different deals on every day, but it was quite quiet so we didn't stay long.
Thursday morning before we left Napier, we drove up to Bluff Hill Lookout. From here you can see over to Cape Kidnappers in the west and across to the Mahia Peninsula in the east.
