Carol Singing

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Christmas is only a 8 days away and showed its face today in Napier with carol singers and decorations ón the main street. That and the coloured lights which adorn the trees and fountain outside our hotel.

Napier is a lovely city which owes its current existence to a two and a half minute event on the morning of February 3rd, 1931. It was then that a 7.9 magnitude earthquake destroyed the centre of the city which crumbled and caught fire killing 258 people. 300 sq km of land in the bay area were instantly uplifted by over 2 metres which was enough to displace the sea and create "new" land to expand the city during the later rebuilding. Evidence of the uplift (yet another example of faulting) is seen where the original channel buoys, which marked the shipping lanes of the lagoon, are still seen; now well above current sea level in a farmer's field. Napier was completely built from scratch in the Art Deco style of the 1930's which it still keeps today as a snapshot of the times.

Our room overlooks the Pacific Ocean which is just across the road! The next land in that direction is Chile in South America! The temperature at night is a barmy 19 degrees and we sleep with the air conditioning off and the window open listening to the sounds of the ocean! It is too hot really for Christmas and we have now settled down comfortably into summer!

It will be a rude awakening this time next week!

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Photos

Carol singing on Main Street
Silent Night?

Room with a view
Scenic Hotel at night.

Room with a view
Overlooking Pacific Ocean - next stop Chile!

Art Deco
The Jade Centre

Where is the ocean?
Coastal uplift. The marine buoy uplifted out of the sea.