• Drive to Napier

Up early, as we needed to arrange a new camera - asked the tom tom to take us to d*** Smith, but missed a trust as we left the hotel - which worked well, as it was taking us to one in the city, but turned out there was one just down the road when we went the wrong way. Unfortunately they didn't have the camera we're looking for. Tried to find a place we had heard of in the city - but appeared they had moved and no indication where (even though they are actively advertising on TV…) so we drove around the maze of the city & found a camera place, which were able to provide us with basically the same camera, so now all sorted.

Then off to Napier - just over 4 hour drive. We've noticed on the drives that NZ roads are somewhat more relaxed about rules and safety. On the why here in a 100 zone we literally drove around a corner & they were doing road works with a 30km sign up & a guy standing in the middle of the road with a stop sign -had to slam on the brakes to stop in time as the signs were only visible after rounding the blind corner!

Once in Napier, checked into the hotel - Rachel is excited as we have a SPA again. Drove into town to look around - quite a nice costal location - not that the beaches as anything like Perth - black "sand" and quite rocky, although we did see 2 young boys playing in the water - would have been freezing! Drove up to a lookout - along this very narrow very windy 2 direction, section of road that was only wide enough for 1 car… found a nice waterfall and gardens along the way - then headed out for dinner.