napier

we went to napier last weekend. pardon the delayed post...but the computer is in a room with no heat. it makes me less than motivated to post. you understand.

friday we drove the 4 or so hours to napier, and mostly hung out after that. bought some groceries and settled in. we rented at "self-contained unit" from the bayview snapper holiday park. it was cheap, clean accommodation with a little kitchenette and private bathroom. nothing fancy, but got the job done.

view from our "scu" right on the beach

saturday morning we explored downtown napier. did some window shopping, visited the farmer's market and had some yummy italian pizza. in the afternoon we did some winery visiting. we went to sileni, abbey, trinity hill, and unison and purchased our fair share of bottles.

the bells in downtown napier

sunday, we got up early and drove 2.5 hours away from napier to te urewera national park, to see the sights and get in a nice hike. our hike in took about an hour, and there was an empty cabin shelter at the end near a lake. at this point the wind was blowing, and the rain was falling, so we went in and made some lunch and took a nice break.

serene lake we sighted along our drive

a nice viewpoint along the way

the dense rainforest we hike through

making lunch in the shelter

 monday we had to head back. i start work at 2.30 on mondays, so we got up relatively early, had some breakfast and then we were on our way. wait. no, there was another viewpoint. but this one was my favorite of the entire trip so i'm glad we went a bit out of the way to get there. it combined topography with lambs. neat-o!

lambs at the viewpoint

accurately depicts NZ landscape