BoomerGirl Diary

Our next stop on the north island of New Zealand is the city of Napier. On Feb. 3, 1931, an earthquake devastated central Napier. Then fires broke out, destroying many of the buildings that had survived the earthquake. But by 1933, most of the town had been rebuilt in the Art Deco style that was popular in the '30s. Almost all of these buildings still exist, making Napier one of the world’s most complete Art Deco townscapes.

The third weekend in February, Napier holds an Art Deco Festival with a parade of over 300 vintage cars, dances, concerts and many other events. We arrived just before this festival, but were still able to enjoy seeing many of the fabulous old cars arriving. City folks were beginning to dress in the styles of the '30s too, which also gave the streets a vintage feel. We took the walking tour of the downtown and enjoyed the timeless vintage beauty of the town.

Early in the morning, we were out on Kidnapper’s Cape with the Gannet Safari Tour group. This tour took us across a large sheep farm, part of which is being converted into a world-class golf course, to the top of a long series of cliffs that form the south part of Hawke Bay. Captain Cook named this area Kidnapper’s Cape, and in his day there was a very small colony of gannets or boobies in residence on the rocks along this Cape. Since then, the number of these very large seagull-like birds has increased to over 13,000.

The tour bus took us up to a nesting area or colony of gannets where we were within three feet of the birds, who took no interest or notice of us and our frenzied picture taking. Gannets nest on New Zealand’s coast, and when the newly hatched young are about 15 weeks old, they head for Australia. Quite a first trip! Our guide told us that no adult birds accompany the young birds, that somehow they know the way. After spending three or four years in Australia, the young adult birds return to New Zealand, where they will mate for life and stay to raise the next generation.

There was a constant swirl of feathers in the air above and around the birds, as most of the young gannets were almost adult sized and busy shedding their “baby feathers.” It reminded us of those cliché pillow fights where the pillows all split open, but on a larger scale. We were also entertained by the gannets’ abrupt and sometimes skidding landings as they returned from the sea. They are graceful in the air and on water, but seem to struggle with sticking the landings. Guess two out of three isn’t bad.

Back to beachfront hotel, we finished the day with a walk along the beach at Napier. This is a volcanic, black sand (actually more of a fine gravel) beach that is very clean. There did not even seem to be any seaweed washing in with the tide. Even with all of the hotels flashing “No Vacancy” signs we had the beach almost to ourselves.

The Hawke’s Bay area has a large number of vineyards and has many orchards and berry farms. We saw hundreds of apple trees loaded with fruit and row after row of grapevines, netted to protect the grapes. I was reminded of Napa Valley, but the seacoast is in sight and the people are a bit friendlier. The real estate offices here have information on their listings posted in their office windows. It is more than a little tempting to stop and look and dream.

But, now we are off to Wanganui and the southwest coast of lower New Zealand North Island.