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Published: January 20th 2011
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Finally some rest... and Napier
English (Anouschka) 16th January 2011
Today we were in for some rest. Yes: shocking, maybe we’re getting old! We decided to book one more night at our beautiful spot in Tongariro National Park. Time for sleeping in, doing some laundry and tidying up the van (for those of you who are familiar with the day-to-day state of our rooms back home, this should not be surprising). Later in the day the sky cleared. As a lot of muscles were aching after yesterday’s workout, it was time to loosen them up a little bit. The camping ground is in the centre of the national park, so it wasn’t hard to find a nice walk close by. We walked to ‘Silica Springs’, another of those nicely (in this case: red/brownish) colored water springs. Again, we had stunning views over the volcanoes and the path went through lovely swamp/grass fields and forests.
17th January 2011
We headed for Napier, located at the east coast of the North Island. It was an extremely warm day with the clearest skies we saw so far, so we could enjoy the scenery during the drive to the fullest. The best thing
about living in a campervan is having your ‘home’ with you all the time. At one of the many picnic areas we baked pancakes for lunch. We reached the coast around 4 pm, and found a camp site close to the city. Later, it turned out to lie adjacent to the airport, but luckily there were only a few smaller planes landing and taking off. The area is the most ‘Costa Brava’-like we’ve seen so far, quite dry and with that beach atmosphere.
Napier itself is supposed to be THE city to see Art Deco buildings. In the 1930s, an enormous earthquake destroyed the city. What is now one of the central neighborhoods was actually an earth layer that was pushed up from the sea back then. They rebuilt the city in Art Deco-style. We spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening there. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite boring, although the high street is great for shopping. It was as though everyone had left the city for their holidays. We tried to find a nice place to have a drink, but they were all closing at 7:30 already. Well, anyway, we spotted a hill again and
as we are now experienced climbers we felt the urge to go up again. A nice view over the harbor and city was the result.
Being at the camp site with the cheapest wifi so far, there was time for some late night/early morning Skype sessions with some of you. It feels like we’ve been away for such a long time already.
Nederlands (Lisa) 16/1 Rustdag, soort van, eindelijk
Nog stijf van de wandeling strompelden we tegen elf uur ’s ochtends ons kampeerbusje weer uit de volgende dag. Na zeer relaxed opstarten kwam tegen 4 uur ’s middags toch weer de drang om iets te gaan doen. Gelukkig waren de mooie wandelingen om de hoek: we hoefden de camping alleen maar af te lopen om alweer de keuze uit meerdere wandeltochten te hebben. Uiteindelijk zijn we in 1,5 uur tijd naar ‘Silica Springs’ gelopen, wederom door een betoverend landschap.
17/1 Napier
Napier stond in onze reisgidsen aangeprezen als leuk Art Deco stadje aan de kust. Het bleek een slaapstadje aan een prachtige kust te zijn. Nogmaals werd bevestigd dat je voor de steden echt niet naar Nieuw Zeeland hoeft. Na de uitgebreide training van twee dagen geleden besloten
we er nog een heuvel klim in te gooien: deze keer 100 meter omhoog naar Bluff Hill, een heuvel met uitzicht over Napier. Napier is ergens in de vorige eeuw volledig verwoest door een aardbeving en moest daarom weer opnieuw opgbouwd worden (ditmaal in Art Deco stijl).
Onze camping was een 4-sterren camping dicht aan de weg met een overdekte loopgang in het midden die leidde naar het toiletgebouw/de keuken. ’s Avonds en de volgende ochtend hebben we voornamelijk besteed aan skypen. Was heel leuk om even weer wat gezichten te zien en stemmen te horen.
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