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Napier was our next port of call - after a long drive through the more or less empty east coast hinterland - there aren't even any roads to take you from the main road out to the coast so the south east coast of North Island is totally wild & we left it that way. We passed through a couple of tiny settlements Dannevirke & Norseland which were originally settled by scandinavians & where the locals hype this up as much as possible to earn some tourist NZ$ but in reality, it's as kiwi as the rest of NZ and very very rural & very very quiet.
Napier was a bit of a shock - it had suburbs & more than one street - so we got very lost. But after a lot of driving in circles & shouting & cursing we found the city centre - and it was fascinating. Napier was completely and utterly destroyed by a 7.9 earthquake in 1932. As well as destroying the town, the earthquake lifted up 800 hectares of sea bed and created 800 hectares of new land which had previously been under water. Napier airport is built on it & you can see the cliffs which overlooked the sea until 1932 which are now 3km inland ! ! When the town was rebuilt, they re-built it in the style of the era - Art Deco. Hotels, restaurants, cafés, the FireStation, Theatre, Cathedral absolutely everything is Art Deco. We spent a very pleasant afternoon visiting all this & then found a fabulous municipal campsite on the beach where we camped overnight to the sound of the waves for a fee of £3.
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