On Friday morning I drove from Brudda's to Hamilton to pick up Salome as we were hanging out for the weekend. For those of you who don't remember Salome was my flatmate in Edinburgh, she is over in NZ for a friends wedding and a holiday. We headed off to Napier where we were planning to spend the night. When we got to Napier though it turned out that all the accommodation was booked out, we went to the only hotel showing a vacancy sign but they only had one family room which had a minimum two night stay. The lady was super helpful though and advised us that all the accommodation in Hawkes Bay was fully booked due to a horse event happening. She doubled checked their system in case any had had last minute cancellations but none had. We decided that we would spend the afternoon in Napier then drive to Rotorua for the weekend as Salome hadn't seen everything there she wanted to when she was with her friends.
It turned out that other than cool buildings there is not a lot to do in Napier anyhow. We wandered round for a bit, had some lunch, wandered some more and then decided we were happy to head off again. I would really like to go back as want to do Cape Kidnappers, as its a 5 hour return walking trip we didn't do it. When we got back to Rotorua for the evening Spartz decided that it was a bit of a useless round trip in his opinion, as we were staying at the motel next to Brudda's Spartz was justified in his opinion. I pointed out to him that he is now closer to reaching 200,000km's which he wouldn't have been had we not gone for that big trek and this helped his mood.
Sadly Saturday in Rotorua (as in much of the country) was very wet. We were lucky and got about 1.5 hours of fine weather midday which we made the most of and went out to the lake, walked around it for a bit and then went to the Government Gardens. We also went souvenir shopping for Salome. It fined up a bit later on but as the ground was very wet (we discovered that on the walk we did when we had to dodge some puddles that were more lakes than puddles) we decided the other things on our list (like the Redwoods) would not be much fun. Instead we enjoyed some Netflix and it was like old times when we lived together.
On Sunday we headed to Mount Maunganui, when we arrived it was pouring down so we sat in the car and waited. After about 10mins our wait paid off and it fined up enough for us to get out and take photos of the beach and most of the mount. We decided to risk going for a walk and headed off with fingers crossed and coats on. Luckily the rain held off and we made it all the way around the mount without any rain, and it was when we were about 200m from Spartz that it started raining again so lunch was had in the car not on the beach. Then we drove up to Waihi where Salome was meeting back up with her friends and I was continuing on my way.
It turned out that other than cool buildings there is not a lot to do in Napier anyhow. We wandered round for a bit, had some lunch, wandered some more and then decided we were happy to head off again. I would really like to go back as want to do Cape Kidnappers, as its a 5 hour return walking trip we didn't do it. When we got back to Rotorua for the evening Spartz decided that it was a bit of a useless round trip in his opinion, as we were staying at the motel next to Brudda's Spartz was justified in his opinion. I pointed out to him that he is now closer to reaching 200,000km's which he wouldn't have been had we not gone for that big trek and this helped his mood.
Sadly Saturday in Rotorua (as in much of the country) was very wet. We were lucky and got about 1.5 hours of fine weather midday which we made the most of and went out to the lake, walked around it for a bit and then went to the Government Gardens. We also went souvenir shopping for Salome. It fined up a bit later on but as the ground was very wet (we discovered that on the walk we did when we had to dodge some puddles that were more lakes than puddles) we decided the other things on our list (like the Redwoods) would not be much fun. Instead we enjoyed some Netflix and it was like old times when we lived together.
On Sunday we headed to Mount Maunganui, when we arrived it was pouring down so we sat in the car and waited. After about 10mins our wait paid off and it fined up enough for us to get out and take photos of the beach and most of the mount. We decided to risk going for a walk and headed off with fingers crossed and coats on. Luckily the rain held off and we made it all the way around the mount without any rain, and it was when we were about 200m from Spartz that it started raining again so lunch was had in the car not on the beach. Then we drove up to Waihi where Salome was meeting back up with her friends and I was continuing on my way.
Napier Waterfront
Napier Beach
Pacific Ocean
Some random park in Napier, very pretty though :)
Lake Rotorua
Missie learning to climb trees
Somewhere under here is the walking track
Ghost Solider with just more water behind it than last time
Missie still making new friends
Gazebo in the Government Gardens
Me and Missie in the Gazebo
Most of Mount Maunganui in the background
The walk around it was still very pretty if rather cloudy
Mount Maunganui Harbour
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