Napier

1/11 Saturday
    We leave the smell of sulfur behind and drive first to Lake Taupo, NZ’s
largest lake and stop for breakfast at a small café across the street from the
lake.  The early morning drive is beautiful.  Lots of green fields, trees, sheep
and cows.  Lisa has said she read somewhere that NZ has more sheep than people. 
I’m finding that statement more believable with each passing day.  The breakfast
is simple and nice with, of course… lattes.  We take a walk along the lake after
breakfast and the water is crystal clear.  I try my hand at a few practice golf
swings to win NZ$$ but I just leave more balls in the lake missing the target
and keeping the golf ball retrieving snorkeler busy.  The rest of the drive to
Napier is just as beautiful as the beginning although the landscape becomes
drier with the same rolling hills only they are brown.  The water in Hawke’s
Bay, which Napier sits on, is a beautiful aqua.  I’ve never seen this color. 
It’s sort of a turquoise and aqua really – stunning.  Lisa and I take a
run/walk/hike after we check into our room.  It is clear skies and we both get a
little sunburn even though our exposure is minimal.  We wonder if it’s possible
that our location, which is much closer to the Antarctic and the hole in the
ozone, has anything to do with it.  We climb a large hill and have a more than
180-degree view of the Bay.  After this we are anxious to see more so Lisa gets
directions to the Church Street Winery.  Darn… 10 minutes late for the last tour
of the day.  We were forced to taste wine and have lunch.  Fun & delicious so
much so we bought a couple bottles to take with us.  I doubt they’ll make the
trip home as we found the wine very drinkable.  Back to the hotel to relax we
catch NZ playing India in cricket.  We watch for a while and then head off to
visit NZ’s National Aquarium.

Some cool stuff.  We got to see actual Kiwi birds which are quite rare and they
also had a large viewing tank, it allowed you to go underneath and the fish,
stingrays, sharks etc would swim right over the top of you… it seemed as if you
could reach out and touch them.
After this we head into downtown to check out the architecture of the city. 
Destroyed by an earthquake in the early 1930’s it was rebuilt in the style of
Art Deco and is its signature.  Cool structures and pastel colors as Art Deco as
anyone could ever want.  We grab some Indian food “to go” and head back to our
hotel to kick back.

We discover the cricket game is still on so we enjoy our Indian food, cricket
and a bottle of the chardonnay we purchased earlier that day.  (see… I said it
wouldn’t last.)  The game ends up coming right down to the end and NZ loses on
the second to last ball.

One thing I forgot was when we returned with our “to go” food the local fire
dept. was visiting our hotel with full lights going.  A fire alarm had gone off
but ended up being a false alarm.  We were glad for this moment to be a
non-incident.