Blogs from Napier, East Coast, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Sorry been a while since i've been on here. Been on a bit of a road trip. Having left Auckland, i made my way to Mount Maunganui. I stayed there longer than i should. The weather was so nice and the beaches there were amazing! Really nice little cafes, and great walks as well. After that i was in Gisborne. The town it's self was not that impressive, but it had some nice shops, and some great beaches. Again some really good walks. The town is the first place where Captain Cook landed. They seem to be very proud of this fact as there's loads of statues. I've just arrived in Napier now, so i'll probably stay a few days here. ... read more

Hello everybody, I'm losing a bit the rhythm of writing my story in time. Last time a added pictures that should be in this entry. So it is a bit mixed up. Anyway, I'll try to cover the whole story uptill today! So last time, I ended the story at the 29th of december whem I was leaving for the east cape trip, with the main goal: the rythm and vines festival the 31st of december. So with a full bus, 11 people I think, we left. Jason the busdriver was a local Maori guy, so he knew all the little nice places, beaches and bays all over! The first day we arrived at in Pihi's place in Maraehako bay. A great backpackers right on the beach! We were there for ten minutes and immideatly jumped ... read more

DATE VISITED: 30TH DECEMBER 07 It took a good few hours to get from Rotorua to our first stop at the East Cape which was on the East Coast around the corner. The hostel was right by the sea and our pitch was in their garden along with a few other tents. Some other travellers were here and we shared a few beers chatting and exchanging tips that night.. The host was really relaxed and made us feel real welcome. We loved the outdoor kitchen where making my vegetarian curry was a treat with a sea view and accompanying breeze! The outdoor shower was refreshing too! The journey to here was long but worth it for the coastal views and quite hilly and rugged hill terraine (the forested mountains in the distance were pretty too!). The ... read more

Updated 19 MAR 07 USB Problem fixed. New Updated entry following: Checked out of Novotel. :- ( Sad face for this was a lovely Hotel. 5 star and worth it. We breakfasted at a place called Relish also on Tutanekai Street, Wendy had a wonderful meal of poached eggs on herded mash with hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon, while I had roasted field mushrooms, shaved parmesan and rocket. These meals could have been served in any really good café in Melbourne for the quality of cuisine and presentation offered here. Well done to them. Then we headed off to Napier, the Art Deco capital of NZ. We took Motorway 2 south out of Rotorua down to Taupo on the most massive lake in NZ. We stopped there and bought a few CDs. Why you ask. ... read more

After all the alarms started buzzing about 5:30 in the morning, we all scrambled half asleep to the top of the ridge overlooking the ocean to be the first people on the planet to greet the new day! Quite neat actually! And we heard that it was practically a zoo up here on the morning when we turned into the year 2000, since so many people wanted to be the first to greet the new Millenium. So since we were all up and we had a long day of driving ahead of us, we got a quite early start and continued along hwy 35. Along the way we saw the longest wharf in the Southern Hemisphere ( it goes 660 m into the ocean), took more pictures of the rugged coast line, stopped at some hot ... read more

The East Cape is the Eastern most spot on the mainland New Zealand's and after various stops along the way to take more picture of the amazing coast line, we arrived at the Eastender Backpackers in the early afternoon. We were greeted by Rich, the one-armed Maori who runs the backpacker with his wife, and who is the proud owner of 24 beautiful horses. (btw, he lost his arm in a shark attack!!!) After a short introduction into horsemanship, we set out to ride along the beach, through the crashing waves, (which was just simply amazing,... imagine a beach, for miles not a single other person in sight, a bit of driftwood, waves splashing and crashing, and then you on a horse... a dream, really) after about 20 min of riding along the water, we turned ... read more

OH MY GOD! I had the most amazing day. I couldnt do a dive in the sea as the visability wasnt good, so i went to the aquarium and did a dive at feeding time. It was truly amazing. I was feeding stringray and they were all over me really close, they had their barbs which was a bit scary as they were close but they were really friendly. There were sharks in the tank too, they havent bitten anyone for 5 years though!!! I tried to feed them too but they didnt come close enough but maybe thats a good thing! Graeme came back from Auckland in the eveing and we headed to ocean beach to kip in the van. It was cool, it was nealy a full moon and we watch it rose above ... read more

Nicki and graeme went back to Auckland to say bye to Nic yesterday. I went on a walk with some girls from the hosteland then we went to the beach as the weather has finally got hotter!... read more

We spent the days over new year in jail!!! Well it used to be a prison. Its now a backpackers! Had a look round Napier. It got destryed in 1931 by earthquake and is now very much an art deco town so we went on a tour. In the veing there was a free concert so we saw some bands play and watched the fireworks.... read more

I have been on the road, moving from hostel to hostel, now for five weeks and I’m getting grumpy. I didn’t really enjoy Napier that much, which is a pity because it’s a very pretty city filled with pastel hued Art-Deco buildings. There are so many of these “style-moderne” structures that Napier could be called the Art-Deco capitol of the world (though Miami also claims this crown). This was all down to the big quake in ’31 which at 7.9 on the Richter scale and lasting over two minutes, destroyed the town centre in conjunction with the fires that broke out immediately afterwards. The regeneration started immediately and was almost wholeheartedly constructed in the then popular Art-Deco style: all ziggurats, lightening bolts and sunbeams. It all makes for a beautiful city but somehow it didn’t lift ... read more