We woke to a very grey day this morning, but at least it wasnt raining. This was more important than normal as our plan for the morning was to join one of the walking tours run by the Art Deco Trust. We had a good buffet breakfast in the ground floor restaurant, and for anyone following along on the mushroom reports… today there were lovely mushrooms… but no tomatoes again!
We had plenty of time to get organised before walking about 10 minutes down through the twon to the old Women’s Rest Building in Clive Park, which is the new home of the Art Deco Trust. The lady at the counter was delighted to have two extra takers for the 10am tour and suggested we fill in the time before hand by checking out the small Saturday farmers market which was set up just outside their door. That took about 3 minutes! So we sat on a bench in the pretty park to wait for the tour to start.
Susan, our guide , first directed us to a small theatre room where she showed some slides and a 20 minute film about “The Day That Changed the Bay”, the day of the earthquake in February 1931. Then she guided us through the town for a little over an hour , telling us about the specific Art Deco features of the different buildings and also some of the stories of the people that lived through the Earthquake…( like the chap who told rescuers to “just cut his leg off”, which as it was a wooden leg, wasn’t really such a drama!) and the sad stories of some who died ( like the poor lady trapped in the cathedral buildings who simply couldnt be extracted so the local Dr gave her an overdose of Morphine to put her out of her misery)
After the tour, Neil and I returned to the hotel and set out in the car to Te Mata Peak. The peak is Tn iconic feature of the Hastings District skyline, rising 399m above sea level and is steeped in Māori legend. It is said that Māori chief Te Mata fell in love with the daughter of his rival, the Heretaunga chief. To prove his worthiness and win the beautiful Māori maiden’s love, Te Mata accepted a series of near-impossible challenges. The handsome chief choked and died attempting his final task, which was to eat his way through this rocky range. Te Mata Peak depicts the outline of his prostrate body and is called the Sleeping Giant by locals.
Whatever the legend, the 360 degree views from the top are absolutely fabulous. I was amazed that it wasn’t windy up there as it had been very breezy on our walk down in the town.
It was now heading towards 1pm, and as Hawkes Bay is one of NZs premier winery regions I had selected a couple of alternative wineries for us to stop for lunch. We first drove to Abbey Winery, but it turned out they were closed until “Spring”, so we set off back towards Napier to Shed 530 Winery which turned out to be an excellent choice. The woodfired chicken and pesto pizza was delicious and we both really enjoyed the lovely Alberino wine we had with it.
The rain was spitting a little when we left the winery but had stopped by the time we returned to the hotel. The only thing left on my plans was a visit to the MTG Hawkes Bay Museum, they have an outstanding exhibit all about the time of the Earthquake and we were there for over an hour. There’s an “Earthquake Experience” room where you feel the shakes… but only for 30 seconds. The actual quake went for much longer. However, we were particularly interested in the movie where they had interviews several octagenarians who had been children at the time of the earthquake and told of their experience on the day, and afterwards. It was very moving.
Back at the hotel we relaxed for a while before deciding what to do for dinner. Neither of us was very hungry so we thought we’d just eat something light in the hotel restaurant. Neil’s chicken schnitty was fine but I had the first bad meal of the trip. I’d ordered their Salt and Pepper Squid entree and a salad, I think the squid must have had a double dose of pepper and no squid. Aside from the overpowering pepper taste it had no flavour at all. Oh well, the salad was very good and at least we had eaten a delicious lunch!
Tomorrow we head to another winery region, Martinborough, which is not far from Wellington.