Napier, North Island, New Zealand
What a beautiful town!
Largely destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent fire in 1931, Napier was rebuilt, mainly in the Art Deco style. These beautiful buildings are now sympathetically maintained and preserved, while still being functional. The people are justifiably proud of the town and celebrate its history.
Vintage cars and volunteers in period costume brought an atmosphere of celebration to the visit.
We had opted to pre-book a guided walk through the visitors’ centre which they scheduled for 12.00. This was also the time the ship was due to dock and, as it was a little late they moved us to the 1.00pm walk.
Our guide was knowledgeable, enthusiastic and entertaining and we enjoyed her stories about the various buildings and innovations implemented during the rebuilding.
In a progressive move, all services were installed underground, but this created the problem of where to locate the street signs. The solution? Incorporate them in the paving on the footpaths.
These days, traffic lights provide an elevated options.
We had a nice lunch at The Emporium before a round of mini-golf. Wow, haven’t played that in years. A bit of fun to end the day. We had hoped to tour the old prison but our later than expected start probably made it a bit impractical. Something to save for our next trip, I think.
Arriving back at the ship, the locals were still showing their pride in their history with a selection of vintage cars to farewell us.
And, a beautiful sunset to end a lovely day.
My sister and her husband have been moved to a quieter cabin today. The cruise is fully booked but someone left the cruise today. Unfortunately it was in an ambulance, so they hopefully will be OK. But, on the plus side for my sister, they were moved to a mini-suite. Nice. Not something we’d ever normally have.
flying goannas 
I love Napier, cool wee town
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It’s beautiful. We’ll definitely go back and spend more time there.
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When a girlfriend and I went on a bus tour in 1988, we hired a car for a week afterwards and Napier was the one place I really wanted to visit. I was overwhelmed by all the Art Deco. We went to a history presentation that included shaking chairs! Gave one a real sense for how an earth tremor feels.
Those statues are terrific. It’s amazing how seeing someone wave makes you want to look at who they are waving at. In tis case, you just know you must look. Thanks for sharing and for visiting my blog.
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I would have loved that earthquake experience. The statue of the girl is called “A Wave in Time”. That’s just what it’s like. She really belongs there. The boy on the pole was added later, I believe.
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Probably added the boy because there would be an uncomfortable feeling because you didn’t know what she was waving at.
The earthquake motion experience took us by surprise, there were a few shrieks in the audience and I’m sure I might have gasped!
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