Napier Nurdlings

Napier was a small, not very important town until 1931. It was then hit by a major earthquake which destroyed most of the existing buildings and lifted the land up by 2 metres to convert a lagoon into prime swamp land. This was duly drained to form the town as it is today. Rebuilding was started in 1932 and much of the centre of the town dates from 1932-1936 and was rebuilt in the fashionable Art Deco style. Although some of the building were demolished for “modernisation” purposes the town decided that it should preserve the Art Deco details as far as possible and this has led to Napier becoming (the self styled) Art Deco Capital. In fact the concentration of buildings is very impressive and I spent a happy couple of hours taking lots of photos to bore people with.

While I was doing this (and I admit finding a bar along the way) Sue went on a worthy and informative town tour organised by the Art Deco Trust – this included some interiors as well as exteriors. I would have liked to see the leaping nude panels in the theatre but decided against! During the tour Sue was informed that Napier averages 500 earthquakes each year (more of this later).

We also went to Hastings nearby which has almost as many Art Deco buildings and is much less well known.

In the last post I said I would say more about Gerard the proprietor of Mon Logis. Originally from the Languedoc Gerard had been in NZ for about 20 years. He resembles Gerard Depardieu, or Obelix from the Asterix books. His use of English is erratic, and his accent strongly resembles Hercules Poirot. He seems to run the B&B by himself having little time for the Kiwis who he thinks do not want to work but expect him to be concerned about their problems. Over breakfast there was a discussion about earthquakes, and he was saying that the absence of quakes was a major concern rather than their presence as it could mean a big one was on the way. “Actually” he said “we are more concerned about Tsunamis as we are on the seafront. Last time there was an earthquake in Samoa the government did not even bother to give us a warning.” I was getting a bit concerned by this, but he said the resultant fuss had meant they get warnings of even quite small ones (50cm or so). When this 'appens the seafront is clogged with sightseers looking to see whether they can see it coming to land. Personally I'd head for the hills.

Gerard was a treasure, he took our laundry and got it washed and dried whilst we were out enjoying ourselves and would not accept anything for doing so. So I did give him a kiss (this is Sue by the way).

Today we have driven the 200 miles to Wellington and have dropped the car off. We stay here two nights (tomorrow will be the NZ National Museum) before taking the Inter Island ferry to South Island. A less characterful city centre hotel near the waterfront is our base for the next couple of days.