Napier and Hawkes Bay

We had a long 5 hour drive over to the East Coast but it was worth it! The first couple of days were spent around Napier. On the drive there we found a massive waterfall and just past that a great big field by a lovely river in the middle of nowhere for our first night...it was fab! Very remote!

The city itself was great, we walked down to the beach which was beautiful, and we walked all around the strange town full of colourful Art Deco buildings!

There was an earthquake in 1931 that destroyed much of Napier, and frantic reconstruction between 1931 and 1833 caught architects in the Art Deco mania! Its a an odd old town but we enjoyed walking around and taking photos!

One of the reasons for our trip over this part of the country was to visit the famous Hawkes Bay wine region, which Napier falls right into. There are wineries everywhere you look- this area is most famous for the hundreds and hundreds of orchards, its the prime location to grow grapes as the weather is so perfect.

We were recommended a winery to visit, which was good as there are so many to chose from! It was called Craggy Range and was in the most beautiful setting- just beyond is the Te Mata Peak Park- to local Maori this is the sleeping giant Te Mata O Rongotaha and the view from the winery was fantastic! The wine was good too! We had a great tasting of 6 delicious wines and decided to splash out on a bottle at the end.

We then drove up to the 399m summit of Te Mata Peak and had even more spectacular views of the winery and its vineyards from above, as well as the whole of the Hawkes Bay area. It was a great day, and we topped it off by finding one of the most perfect beaches to watch an amazing sunset on, while drinking our lovely wine.

We spent the next day lazing around on the perfect Ocean Beach, and then made our way round the East Coast towards Gisbourne.