Napier, New Zealand

We were not scheduled to be in port until noon today. We were eating lunch as the ship was pulling into port. It still amazes me how they can maneuver these huge ships. Today the Capt turned the ship around and backed into a very small space. It was something to watch! We had another tour arranged by someone from Cruise Critic so we met them at 12:15. We got on one of the same buses that the ship's tours were using, same company, but ours was $80, they paid $129 going thru HAL. Nice to save some money.

 

We headed off thru Napier. They had a massive earthquake there in 1931. Many of the 250 who died were killed by falling debris from buildings, gargoyles, etc. They decided to streamline the buildings when they rebuilt so did all the building in the Art Deco style. What a lovely place! We passed thru Hastings and several other small towns before arriving to the tour companies headquarters. From there we went a bit further down the road then thru a fancy, automatic gate. We were told that an American billionaire bought the property some years ago (last name Robinson?) and developed it with a golf course (ranked 34th in the world) and lodge. He also built a mesh fence the entire width of the peninsula to keep out predatory animals so the natural animals of NZ could flourish, mainly the birds. There were traps set up everywhere on the grounds to catch any animal that isn't supposed to be there like rats, ferrets and skunks which were introduced to NZ by humans. We drove quite a few kilometers before we saw a nice looking facility up on a hill. It is $1200 to spend the night there, PER PERSON, no food included. The golf course charges NZ$400 fees, which is about $330 US. There was a nice paved road leading up to the lodge and golf course, we left that behind and started on a gravel road. Our 18 passenger bus had 4x drive.

 

The area was beautiful with a lot of rolling hills. They raise cattle and sheep on the property. We made one stop to look out over the ocean. On the other side of the road we could see them herding sheep using ATVs and about 4 dogs. Those sheep were running, looking like little swarming ants since they were quite a distance away. Our destination was a gannet colony which the tour company had permission to visit, by the shore. In this area there were high cliffs next to the sea.

 

We slowed down in one place so we could see the colony of gannets on the beach far below. We went up a steep hill, then all of a sudden, there were hundreds of gannets! It was quite dramatic. All the buses parked there on the ridge so we could get out and enjoy the birds. Gannets have a wing span of almost 6 feet! They breed there in NZ. Once the young are old enough to fly, they fly to Australia where they stay until they are more mature. They return to NZ to find a mate, which they keep for life, and to raise their young. We saw babies in stages from balls of fluff to almost adults. They were everywhere. The noise and smell is hard to put in writing. They are beautiful birds. We stayed there for about 45 min. then headed back to the port. The weather was windy and cool, a wonderful change from all the hot ports we've been to. We arrived at the ship just after 4, sail away was at 5:30. I grabbed Mel and jumped on a shuttle into town so we could see the Deco buildings.

 

We only had time to walk a few blocks down one of the main streets. The buildings were really nice with the Deco trim. One that now houses The Body Shop, had beautiful Deco stained glass windows. Not much time to see the city, but at least we were able to see it. It was so worth it to spend our time in port seeing the gannets.

 

On the pier right next to the ship were 6 vintage cars (late 20's to early 30's) along with their owners dressed in the style of the 30's. It was fun to see. There was also a small jazz band to entertain us. Napier does the Deco thing up big. This coming weekend is Deco weekend when they close down all the city streets and let only vintage cars thru. Everyone dresses in vintage clothing and just have fun I guess! Sounds like something that would be fun to see. We were on our way again by 6.