Napier & Hastings

We arrived in Napier around mid afternoon, after a couple of stops, including one on a black sand beach, which was pretty cool. The isite informed us of a hostel run by a nice English couple, so we made our way there. Once we had settled in, we had a little walk around the area, bought some supplies and cooked dinner before chilling in front of the tv before bed. 

The next day we decided to walk into the town. This was actually quite a long way, which we hadn't realised at first, although it was all along the sea front, so was worth it. Even the weather wasn't too bad (no rain). As we got nearer the town centre we noticed there were a lot of classic cars on the road. There were even more in the town and lots of people dressed up in vintage attire to go with the time their car was from. It was all pretty cool. It turned out you could make a gold coin donation to go for a ride in one of these cars, so we duly obliged. We got a 70 year old Pontiac. The couple in the front were very nice and they took us for a drive through the town. After this we stopped at a burger place for lunch before heading back to the hostel via a viewpoint on the way. We got back to the hostel, tired from the walk, so watched some more tv, ate and relaxed.

The following day was spent moving on. We were making our way towards Wellington but as it was still quite a distance away we knew we had to stop somewhere in between. We headed for Hastings, which isn't that far from Napier. Although we did stop at a winery on the way. The weather was horrible though and there wasn't anyone around, so we didn't stay too long. The same could be said for Hastings. It was cold, wet and nothing was going on, so we found a Pak n save, got some lunch and headed up a nearby mountain/viewpoint. We couldn't see anything from the top because of the cloud and rain so we headed back down and had a hot chocolate in a nice cafe looking out over the town. Afterwards we carried on towards Wellington.

As it was getting late we decided to stop at a campsite in a little town called Pahiatua. The campsite was dead, we thought it was abandoned at first, but turned out the owners were away and we were expected to sign in on a register and leave our money in a box, which we did being the honest, generous people that we are. The site was still pretty creepy, with lots of empty looking caravans dotted around. So after cooking, and playing cards, we retired to bed to allow morning to arrive quicker. Needless to say the campsite was less creepy in daylight. So after sorting ourselves out, we hit the road again heading for the capital.

Urrm...you want a pizza?...with no cheese?...I'm not sure that's allowed

We had booked into our campsite for a couple of nights, so that gave us a day to check out what Gisbourne had to offer. There seemed to be a few cool things to do, however not so much when the weather wasn't good, and the weather we were experiencing was pretty horrible. However we still wanted to venture out and check out the area, so decided to go for a walk along the river and back around into the town.

After looking at a few statues and taking a few pictures, we wanted to stop for lunch. We fancied pizza as dominos has a $5 pizza offer, which isn't too bad. However this proved a little more difficult than we had anticipated, for Emily more than myself anyway. The girl behind the counter couldn't comprehend Emily creating her own pizza but without cheese, and had to ask if it was allowed. She then returned and insisted on reading the entire list of options for toppings, and when we asked how much it would be, she still had no idea. I don't know if we were asking too much, or this girl was just dim. We left to avoid the hassle, finding a Pizza Hut with the same deal, and who were also happy to make a cheese-less pizza, instead. 

The rest of our time in Gisbourne was spent at the library making use of the free wifi, so contacting people and attempting to upload photos.

The next day we left for a short drive to Napier, another coastal town.