Wednesday 9th Jan – British car museum, drive back to Auckland via Taupo for lunch

Again, we tried to eke out every last minute of our holiday. Just because it was the last day didn’t mean we had to go straight home, right?!  In fact, we hardly drove for ten minutes before our first stop – the British Car Museum in Haumoana.

An unexpected treat which turned into a session reminding us of our age.  You know you’re getting on a bit when you discover your teenage wheels are now gathering dust in a car museum:

A match for my sister's Ford Ka (above) and the Ford Fiesta, Blandy, we shared as our first wheels (below)

Another surprise was discovering an MG Rover 75 which had been donated by a family from Essex in 2016, only ten minutes down the road from where we used to live! 

A Rover 75.... donated all the way from Essex!

There were so many cool cars crammed right to the ceiling in this museum, we spent a few hours exploring the massive warehouse:

 

We stopped off to view a waterfall on our way through to Taupo for a tasty lunch. Then it was a steady cruise home for me to prepare for getting back to work the next day.

 

Tuesday 8th Jan – Kidnappers’ Cove gannet colony

Luck was with us again. We woke to a beautiful sunny day after yesterday’s grey and cloudy evening.  There are two ways to see the gannets at Kidnappers’ cove as there are no roads to allow access – a long two and a half hour walk, each way, or, the much more fun option of riding on the back of a tractor trailer.  We stopped on the way to take photographs of the cliffs and rock formations: 

Even with the tide in our favour we sometimes got wet toes, but it was refreshing on such a hot day

 

Finally, we reached firstly the Black Reef Gannet colony and finally Cape Kidnappers.  The colony there was huge and the gannet chicks were reaching the stage where they were the same size as the adults, despite still having their downy and grey feathers.   

View from the cliffs at Cape Kidnappers'

A gannet or two....

Adults with yellow head mixed in with fluffy chicks

 

With that many birds and in the mid-day heat there was a very pungent smell up there! But I wasn’t too bothered, enjoying the experience despite this.  

I continued taking snaps along the return journey and it was a more exciting experience as, with the tide coming in, we were even more regularly sprayed with seawater as the tractors ploughed through the waves.  

We celebrated the last night of our holiday having a few beers with dinner before retiring to the tent one last time.

Monday 7th January – the drive to Napier

View of Hawke's Bay from the viewpoint on Bluff Hill, Napier

The pavilion on the seafront

To make the most of Simon’s time off work, I was keen for us to explore some more new NZ locations.  Napier had been recommended by numerous people, especially my brother who, as an architect, has fond memories of the art-deco buildings throughout the town. The Napier earthquake occurred on 3rd February 1931 and killed 256 people. It remains New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster. Almost all of the main buildings in Napier were levelled and, Art-deco being very much in-fashion at that time, this is why the town is home to some of the best Art-deco architecture in the world.


We found our way to the tourist information centre on the seafront where we bought a self-guiding map of all of the main art-deco hotspots around the town.  We wandered the streets on foot, taking photographs.  

A statue on the main pedestrian shopping street

The Masonic hotel on the seafront

Photographs showing the extent of the damage caused by the 1931 Earthquake

Deciding on where to camp that night came down to our plans for tomorrow. 

Despite me saying that we had seen gannets on farewell spit only days before, so I’d had my ‘fix’ lately, Simon had agreed to yet another gannet outing! South of Napier, there is a large gannet colony at Kidnapper’s cove and a convenient camp site nearby. 

Off we went and set up the tent again.