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April's Travels
Hawkes Bay area is on the east coast of the north island. They have the best weather, it's pretty mild and we actually had a little sunshine, yippee.
The first stop along the bay was Gisborne. It's the first city in the world that the sun rises in. We headed there to have lamb as Becs hasn't had it before (was a veggie for 15 years). We went to a posh restaurant, got ourselves seated comfortably, looked at the menu and no lamb, oops. We had a very nice dinner though and bottle of wine (there was a need for the wine). We had picked an old convent turned hostel to stay the night in. It was my fault really as i thought it would be a really REALLY good idea to stay there.
Having checked in i read a biblical style text on the stairs claiming that ghosts were around at 4am on the stairs.......great. The stairs were right outside our door. It was freezing cold in there and the place was full of hill billy crazies!! The bottle of wine numbed the fear momentarily. I feel asleep about midnight, woke up an hour later and was up until....you guessed it, 4am!! Didn't end up seeing any ghosts, so had about 2 hours sleep then we were up at the crack of dawn to watch the sun rise.
We got dressed and raced along to the beach as it was getting light. We had about 10 mins to spare and then the sun came up over the horizon and it was beautiful. Watched it for a while then went back to the hostel and got into bed to warm up. It was oh so chilly!! Had my longjohns on for extra warmth!!
That day we drove on to Napier which is famous for all the wine. There are lots of wineries you pass on the way into town so we knew straight away we'd made a wise decision coming here. The first night we stayed at a place called Stables hostel. Was cute, a bit poky and cold but we met our little kitten friend George so it was ok for one night. The next day we moved to a new hostel called Archie's Bunker which we stayed in for the next three nights. We had looked at the decommissioned prison to stay in but having heard all the stories of the hangings, burying people vertically and the fact that our room would have been opposite the old psychiatric unit i point blank refused. Since being in New Zealand i've developed a sleeping disorder. Basically i can't sleep before about 4am, no idea why because i could usually sleep on a branch in a storm next to a crying baby but for some reason i have got in the habit of not falling asleep. Great. I thought a night in the prison might just send me over the edge. So far the sleep deprivation is starting to have amusing affects on me/ almost outer body experiences!!!!
Anyway, in Napier we had a day of fun which involved a trip to a chocolate factory (my heaven) followed by a trip to a cheese factory (Becky's heaven) and rounded up with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in a winery called The Mission. Such a fab day. The highlight was definitely chocolate cake and hot chocolate.
The next couple of days we spent pottering around, had our hair done. Becs rested her back which was playing up and we were waiting for a good weather report so that we could do the Tongariro crossing hike. Eventually we heard that the hike had gone ahead the day we left so we headed to National Park which is at the foot of the mountains you hike across.
At National park which is a tiny villiage type arrangement along the side of the road, we stayed in a lodge hostel. Luck really wasn't with us as the weather changed and was abominable the following day meaning we couldn't do the hike. Bec's back got really bad so she was bent over for the whole day and i was still twiddling my thumbs at 4am each night. On the up however we had a really great group of people in the hostel who we sat and had beers with both nights. There was a Canadian crazy who was just hysterical and entertained us so all was not lost. The day we set to leave the sun shone brilliantly and 8 people had already gone out on the hike before we woke up, blow it. The saving grace being that we got to see the mountains we would have hiked across, one being Mnt Doom. It looked amazing so i'm so glad we got to see the view over breakfast.
Our next move was to set off for the capital, Wellington.
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