Road Trip: Napier aka the “Art Deco Capital of New Zealand”

We began our road trip by heading west through the Taupo region with a final destination of Napier, also know as the Art Deco Capital of NZ. [Unfortunately for Scott, I kept hearing something else which is not appropriate for this blog every time he said “art deco”!] Taupo was rather overcast but we wandered around the lake before deciding on Thai food for lunch. We were a smidgeon disappointed by the Thai food as it was neither salty nor spicy enough for our liking; but some soy sauce and hot sauce cured our noodles of all ills!

One we made it to Napier, I was trying to figure out why I kept feeling like I had seen the city before. While walking through the streets [which were eerily Santa Monica-4^th Street Promenade-like] I realized that Napier had taken full advantage of the “Art Deco” gimmick, reminding me of Main Street in Disneyland. Regardless, we found an Irish Pub [yes shocker I know], named the “Brazen Head”, where a very kind bartender advised us on the best place to buy fish and chips while we sipped our Mac’s Brewery Three Wolves Lager.

We checked into our campground at the Westshore Holiday Park and set up our tent. We head off on a walk to the Hawke’s Bay Seafood Company to get some fish ‘n’ chips to enjoy on the beach with some New Zealand craft beer. Unfortunately for us the girl completely screwed up our order giving as LOADS of potato wedges instead of the LOADS of fish we requested. Regardless we enjoyed the black sand beach and our meal of entirely fried food.

That night at the campsite, I pretended to be five years old as a jumped on the giant campground trampoline while making fun of Scott for missing the weight cutoff by five kilos. We made friends with the campground kitty cat and decided to knock out early. Our sleep was interrupted by the violent vomiting of man in the bathroom that the receptionist lady had, with only good intentions, placed our campsite near.

Low stress… we woke up shortly after the sun rose up (~7am), put on our suits and sprinted to the beach. We were the only people swimming in the weird, “pulsing”, long-lasting Napier surf. As soon as we had our fill of swimming, we packed up and hit the road so we could make it to Wellington by the early afternoon.