I turned 29 on Tuesday. Crikey! I'll be 30 next year. 30's really really old!
(Apologies now to anyone reading this aged 30 or over. But it is old.)
The day started well, with Anne making me a cooked breakfast in the hostel in Wellington. Bacon, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, toast, tomatoes, juice and coffee. Yum!
We then began the five hour drive to Napier in a balloon-filled car. Weather, again, poor. Not long into the journey, Anne gave me my second present (breakfast was the first). It was a bag of Moro Chocettes - hurrah!
I'd told Anne that what I wanted for my birthday was a few songs, some dancing and perhaps a light show. I didn't get many songs, got no dancing, and the light show was a non-starter. However, she did spend the agreed $20 on small gifts. When we got to Napier she banished me from the room (an ensuite!) and set up a treasure hunt. I had to follow precise directions to find the rest of my gifts, which included a bottle of G&T (ready mixed!) and a box of Cadbury's chocolate-covered almonds. And a magnetic sheep (a toy, not a real one).
That night we went for a meal (paid for by my lovely mum!) We had steak. It was great. They kind of rushed us to order and I was a little worried that they'd try to get us out of the restaurant in no time. Given that we don't eat out much, we wanted to relax and take our time. As it was the main course took ages and ages to come. We started to wonder if something was wrong. Eventually the manager came to our table, apologised and said we could have the wine for free. If we'd have known that would have happened we'd have ordered an expensive one!
The meal was very very good, and we left there happy and full.
Born of earthquakes and fire
Napier is a pleasant little(ish) town. It was almost completely destroyed in 1931 by an earthquake, and the resulting fires. They rebuilt the whole place soon after in Art Deco styles. This makes the town quite distinctive, and Anne and I took a self-guided walking tour on Wednesday morning, looking at the various buildings and reading about their history. After an hour and a half of this Anne said she was a little "Art Deco'd out", so we had some lunch and spent the rest of the day relaxing around town.
Today, the weather took a turn for the better. It's glorious and hot. This is what we wanted from the North Island - yay! We drove to the nearby town of Hastings, which is similarly Art Deco (for the same reason). Parking was a bit of a pain. I said it was a battle. A battle in Hastings. Do you see? (I mean like THE Battle of Hastings. In 1066.)
Hastings was nice enough, but it was the sun that made the day so good. We had a VERY good ice cream at Rush Munro's Ice Cream Parlour, sitting in the sun. We then used the local library to read up about LA, where we'll be in mid-January.
We then gave up our valuable parking space to drive up a big hill - Te Mata. From the summit we got an amazing view of the surrounding region, and could even see all the way to Tongariro National Park, where we went walking last Friday. (And where Anne fell over and bruised her bum.) We drove down to Havelock North, bought a loaf of crusty bread and some brie, and ate these sitting in a park. Honestly, it's so much easier to entertain yourself when the sun's out.