Day Ten: Napier, New Zealand

Dear Everyone,

Today we rode The Hawke’s Bay Express around Napier, a sweet little city beside the ocean which has an amazing concentration of Art Deco architecture. Apparently, much of Napier was razed by an earthquake in 1931, and the city was built back in the next three years in the Art Deco style. The Hawkes Bay Express is hard to describe, but it is a lot like the conch tour trams in Key West, but tarted up to look like a train built in the 30’s. And there is only one of these vehicles, built by Richard, a Napier native, and his father. Richard was our tour guide, and his wife, Krista, was his sidekick.

After our thrilling train/tram ride, we walked around the city and admired the Art Deco architecture.

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Random Thoughts:

Napier is an exporting seaport—primarily wool, fruit, wine, lumber and meat. And with the cruises that come in to port, tourism has become another viable source of income.

We expected it to be hot here, but so far we have had beautiful sunny days of mostly low seventies. No humidity, so really perfect weather.

I have noticed that not all of the pictures come through on the email that is generated from my posts. If you want the full-on experience, you need to click on the link to go to the website. You will not want to miss anything on this super exciting trip!