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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 15

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  What a fabulous day. We woke to brilliant sunshine and got ready for our vintage car tour of Napier. Wallsy and I were in the first tour group to depart at 08:30 for the Art Deco Trust Centre. Although it was a mere 500m down the street from our hotel, we were loaded on the coach and delivered to the centre. They weren’t taking any risks with today’s tour going wrong!  And after the fourth accident in 9 days, I think the tour leaders are a little nervous. This latest accident - a fall down the staircase in the hotel last night - needed an ambulance response and the gentleman seemingly spent the night in hospital. Today he is sporting a rather large plaster on the back of his head and walking with the aid of a stick.  Anyway, the first group of 15 made it safely to the pick up point, where we watched a video detailing the impact of the 1931 earthquake, which devastated Napier and resulted in it becoming the town it is today, with much well preserved Art Deco architecture...
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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 14

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  A gannet safari was first on the agenda today, so we assembled outside our hotel at 8:15am, following the usual buffet breakfast, and were met by our coaches (well, most of us were!)  No sooner had we set off for Cape Kidnappers, site of the world’s largest gannet colony, than we got caught up in road diversions created by the Ironmaori triathlon. Our two coaches comically drove around in circles for a while trying to navigate the detours, the drivers and traffic marshalls exchanging angry words and gesticulations.  To add to the angst, one of our tour leaders received a phone call to say we had left one couple behind in Napier. An uber was quickly organised to bring them to the departure point for the safari and we continued on through the melee of cyclists and traffic to the Cape. A 25 minute trip had taken us an hour. To add to the delay, we then had to wait, in the rain for the missing couple to join us.  We were finally underway in 3 4WD safari buses, both the...
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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 13

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Wallsy and I got out of bed early and went for a brisk walk before breakfast today. One of the problems of a trip such as this is the sedentary nature of it. Pity they don’t offer some more active sightseeing options at the stops - a nice bike ride or a short hike would appeal to some of the participants, I’m sure.  Our train departed Palmerston North on time at 9am and we were positioned throughout the carriages on the right hand side in the direction of travel for the best views of the Manawatu Gorge.  Coming out of Palmerston North, we first crossed the Pohangina River before running down to the Manawatu River gorge, where the rails hugged the side  and we marvelled at the views of the old, now closed road, which ran along the opposite side, often suspended off the rocky edges above the river.  Once we had left the gorge, we stopped at the historic Woodville Railway Station where we had time to explore the station museum displays.  Back on the rails we were s...
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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 12

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After a glut of photos yesterday where I couldn’t decide which of the beautiful garden pictures to share, there is not much to show for today.  It was raining when we left New Plymouth, the drizzle beginning as we all stood beside the line waiting for our train, which, as has become common, was running late; half an hour late to be precise.  But we got away from New Plymouth at 9 and by the time the refreshment trolley was coming down the train an hour or so later, the sun was out and we were nearing Hawera. Today we were retracing our steps from a couple of days ago, back past the steep sided hills where the livestock needed to be mountain climbers to navigate their pastures. We stopped at the Waverly Station for an early lunch. Here we were greeted enthusiastically  by the Waverly Croquet Club ladies who were providing catering on the old station platform (the station hadn’t had seen a passenger train for 50 years).  Back on board we tucked into our packed lunches ...
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