NAPIER

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30.1.2013



Had a fun dinner last night with all our crew but didn’t do a show as we had to be up pretty early for our early morning tour of Napier and Hawkes Bay.



Picked up at the boat for our tour of Napier and Hawkes Bay wineries by our lovely guide Mike, who made our day perfect in the area. Being a private tour made it much more personal than going with a big bus tour from the ship, I booked all our tours before we left home. Napier is a very art deco town being just about demolished with earthquakes in 1931 – another very picture perfect seaside place – we were greeted on the wharf with an array of vintage cars with their drivers all decked out in dress of the art deco era and a band played music. We first set out to a couple of lookouts which gave us a fantastic view of the area, all the rivers that run through the very fertile area, many sheep and cattle and also crops of kiwi fruit, vines and apples. Our first winery was Vidal, which is owned by Villa Maria, had a tasting of an array of wines, they were very generous with their tastings here. We were surprised at the lovely crisp whites grown in this area, Riesling and pinot gris, made some purchases and then made our way to a boutique winery Moana, which was just lovely, they make vegetarian wine, organic with very low sulphurs etc, so they have a very niche market here. Then onto probably the most famous winery around this area Mission Wines, I think they bring grapes in from all areas over New Zealand and make wine – very beautiful estate that hosts weddings etc, huge big white colonial building which used to be down on the flat but they move the whole building up on the side of a hill where they also host big name concerts, Rod Stewart here twice, Sting and in a couple of weeks time Barry Gibb and Carol King. There is also a very nice restaurant here but we were running short of time so had to miss lunch as we sailed at 3.00p.m. but had to get back to the boat quick smart – Mike was very generous with his time we had booked a half day tour from 9.00a.m. til 1.00p.m. but he delivered us back at about 2.15p.m. Thoroughly enjoyed this part of NZ.



Back on board John entered the table tennis comp – lasted til about round 5 ousted by a Chinese Man. Then retired to the bar for a couple of drinks before dinner.

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