Blogs from Hawkes Bay, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 16

We returned to the North Island from Queenstown, flying back to Wellington where we stayed for a couple of days before renting another car and driving up to Napier in the Hawkes Bay area. In 1931 an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit Napier, causing the deaths of 258 people in the area and almost completely destroying the city. A result of the earthquake was that 40 square kilometres of land was pushed up out of the sea, providing plenty of extra space for the flattened city to expand into when it was rebuilt. The latest architectural fashion at the time was the Art Deco style and the rebuilding programme produced one of the finest examples of an Art Deco city in the world, much of which still survives today. Napier has a rocky ... read more

Well - we've left the luxury and delights of Wellington. For any of you thinking of going to Wellington, you can't do better than stay with Sue Bilbie at 298 Oriental Bay - it is the B&B to die for. Never have we been so pampered. Not even in the Four Seasons in Sydney which was supposed to be the luxurious highlight of the tour. And now - from the sublime to the ridiculous (well, in any event, less sublime) back in the motorhome and staying in Napier. Napier is great - an art deco city that was built from the ruins of a 1931 earthquake. Hundreds of buildings still have art deco mouldings or furnishings. It's like walking around a museum, but with more life. Actually, not that much more life as it's winter and ... read more

North Island here we are. Well, we landed, or docked in at Wellington, the capital of NZ. We spent a couple of nights here, but to be honest were pretty glad to move on. It's amazing that we come from a city as big as Leeds, but now we just want to get away from big cities, full of people and traffic. We head up the east cost to our 1st stop....Napier. A mid size town, besides the sea. We stayed a couple nights here, and did the usual things..... including a visit to a 70's style marine park. The highlight being the rescue centre for tiny penguins. We did a bit of a tour around the penguin hospital, and had chance to feed/hold them etc. Which was quite heart warming and sad, seeing blind, one ... read more

We moved down to the Orchard on the 26th of February and started picking on the 27th, the first day of the picking season. The Orchard we were working at was Mr Apple Ongaonga. The Orchard is actually 3km by road from the "village" of Ongaonga (which is named after a large very poisonous stinging nettle). Ongaonga is a very old historical village in NZ terms and it has a village museum, department of conservation information hut, a shop, a car mechanic and a pub (The Sandford Arms)! The nearest town of any kind of size worth mentioning is Waipuk (Waipukurau) which is about 25km away and then Hastings which is about 65km away. Basically everything closes at 5pm apart from one shop 15km away which closes at 8pm and one in Waipuk which closes at ... read more

Hi guys, After the long, but beautiful, ride through National Park from Taupo I arrived in Napier two weeks ago. Its a nice place with cool Art Deco buildings and a great sea view, but its also one of those many examples of the Kiwi's not understanding the word 'city'! How can it be a city if its got a smaller population that Hartlepool! From there I meet up with the apple picking people in Hastings and prepared for the shock of actually working again. Didn't really pick apples until this week, due to the rain and the apples not being ready (quite what that means I don't know). But once we got started it was cool, and i'm actually good at it! We get paid by how much we pick so i've got to be ... read more