Famous last words

June 11
Since December Hawkes Bay has had only 1 or 2 days of rain and is experiencing quite a bad drought. This is a little wierd micro climate of New Zealand. As a break from all the wind and rain we decided to make the 2 hour journey over there and check out the town. On the way there it felt as though we were taking the rain with us and Jen reassured us that it never rains in the bay. However when we got there, much to the locals delight, it was absolutely tipping it down. There's not a lot to doinNapier in the pouring rain so we visited the local museum, which explains the 1931 earthquake which leveled the whole of the town and shows how the town was rebuilt. The majority the fashionable Art Deco style of the time. It also had some local Maori art and bizarrely enough an exhibit of clothes worn by London clubbers, particularly in the Trance and Techno scene. The clothes shown in tis exhibit were very futuristic and looked like they'd been taken straight from a Star Wars/Cyborg/Matrix film, Not sure quite where they got there research from - but clothes did look quite cool!
The next indoor activity, as it was still chucking it down, was the aquarium. After our trips round Singapore and Sydney aquariums this one really wasn't anything new, except for the rather randomly placed Kiwi Display, where we managed to see 2 Kiwis. One pecking at the ground, and the other manickly running backwards and forwards prodding at the ground.
As it was still raining when we left the aquarium we decided to knock our day at the beach on the head and went to the outskirts of town where we popped into the Oldest winery in New Zealand, Mission. Here we sampled 2 or 3 wines each, then went into their restaurant for a lovely spot of lunch. Trace had the biggest mussels she has ever eaten - delicious!

Big Mussels

We then spent the next 2 hours in Jens car and soon enough were back in Palmerston North.

Napier, New Zealand