Kia Ora

Wednesday 7th January 2009

I drew back the curtains this morning and the sun was blazing so much so that the handle to open the window was hot.This prompted us to think about taking things easy for the day.Mel had problems getting into the shower again and had to end up waiting until after breakfast when it seemed to quiten down a little.

We cut inland this morning to the town of Hastings (19km away) and were not too sure what to expect,all we knew was it had the distinction of being the only town in NZ that was laid ot on a grid system like in the U.S. It turned out to be a nice little town with plenty of shops and a couple of nice buildings but not much to write home about although the lamp posts were pretty cool!!!

It was then a little back tracking to take us onto Cape Kidnappers to look at the gannet colony.It was named Cape Kidnappers after Captain Cook when the Maori's tried to carry off his Tahitan interpreter!!

The road hugged the ocean and today it was a nice turquoise colour.While driving through one of the small villages a pheasant flew into the car,we stopped and Mel had a walk back down the road to try and see if we had killed it but it was nowhere to be seen.I just hope we were going slow enough so it wasn't injured.Luckily the car was OK too!!!

The road came to a sudden end and we realised that the gannet colony wasn't accesible by car but a 5 hour walk was needed to reach them,nature had made it's call and the decision was out of our hands as it was high tide so the beach was inaccesible for the walk and we were unable to go.

We sat and enjoyed the sea views while we ate lunch and the sea breeze was a welcome respite from the still midday heat,I was cautious on the drive back and took it slow through the villages looking for low flying birds but fortunately there weren't any.

Mel sat reading for the rest of the afternoon and I went for a walk which was cool because I stumbled across the centennial gardens complete with huge waterfall and also a cool cathedral so I had a poke around and a chat with a guy there before making my way back to the hostel. As the weather was so good we headed into Napier for a couple of drinks before dinner and ended up helping a guy from Hull with the pub quiz befor ereturning to the hostel for our dinner.Our time in Napier has been short but tomorrow morning we leave to return to Auckland to sort out a few things and pick up our new car on Friday.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx