We left Lake Taupo and headed along State Highway 1 to the town of Napier. It's not at first the most interesting drive with endless conifers, very few houses or people, and far too many road works. But we eventually pulled off the road when we saw a sign to Waipunga Falls, where the Waipunga river plummets 30m. A beautiful place.
As invariably happens in New Zealand, we weren't the only ones to have the same idea, and a couple from Canada and Hastings NZ offered to take our picture.
Clearly not a day of sartorial elegance for either of us!
Luckily soon after this we saw a sign promising coffee coming up at what was announced as the mid-way point between Taupo and Napier: Tarawera. It turned out to be a fascinating place full of photos and information about its previous history, lovingly displayed by its present owner. Once the site of a bustling hotel from the mid 19th century to 1965, when it unfortunately burned down, it had also been a stop-over for the horse-drawn mail coaches in the late 19th century.
Sometimes when we're driving something just catches our eye.....
THE TOWN:
Always to be remembered by us as the moment when we 'couldn't find' the keys to the back of Nick's truck (only 'found' on our return to Te Puru), our first stopping place in Napier was the pretty, and immaculately kept, Clive Square.
This carrillion plays a tune every 10 minutes between 12 and 2 each afternoon.
The Square borders on Emerson Street, and we began to get a flavour of the architecture Napier is famed for.
Marine Parade is the long strip of grey shingle which is Napier's main beach, unsafe for swimming with its treacherous undertows. Ironically, a signpost showed Hastings NZ to be twenty kilometres up the road. To us, this beach could have been the Hastings or Margate (Kent)of our childhood in the 1950s.
ART DECO NAPIER
Everything changed for Napier in two and a half minutes on the morning of February 3rd. 1931 with an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale, at the time of writing still the biggest in New Zealand in recorded history. (The Christchurch quake of September 2010 registered 7.1.) A total of 258 people died, there were over 600 aftershocks in the next 2 weeks, and the city was completely devestated. Three hundred square kilometres of new land, more than 2 metres higher, emerged from the sea: a line of sranded sea cliffs can still be seen a couple of kilometres away.
Napier had to be rebuilt, and the opportunity for change resulted in streets being widened, telephone wires were laid underground, and almost everything new was designed in line with the prevailing Art Deco Movement. As a result, Napier ranks with Miami Beach as one of the world's largest collections of Art Deco buildings.
We headed for the suburb of Marewa where there are Art Deco houses on most streets. It felt so incongruous to be seeing them here, having grown-up with them in London along the North Circular and Western Avenue. We expected to see the Hoover Factory at any moment.
After a bit of a search we even managed to find one with the distinctive rounded windows.
Up to the 1980s Napier residents tended to paint the buildings grey or muted blue, but since the foundation of the Art Deco Trust funds have been provided to use the pastel colours that were originally used.
This was very obvious as we walked through the main streets of the commercial centre......
An arch on Marine Parade.
At many places photograhic displays show what it would have looked like before 1931.
The ASB Bank: exterior adorned with fern shoots.
The Daily Telegraph building with stylised fountains.
The Municipal Theatre, built in geometric design.
Napier has the feel of the Mediterranean.
We were impressed by the way that modern life had been assimilated into the 1930s buildings. Napier is not a museum.
Two views from inside the Metropole Hotel: beautiful windows and seats 1930s- style.
ART DECO WEEKEND: VINTAGE CARS
The Wednesday we arrived was just before the annual Art Deco Weekend, and the town was gearing up for 2 days straight out of 'The Great Gatsby'. Dozens of beautiful vintage cars were descending on the town and we saw some of the early arrivals.
Steve gets up-close-and-personal with the car of his dreams.
What a number plate. It must be fate!
1 comment:
Hi Sue and Steve, I'm Kathie from New Zealand and I have just commented on a Card that Louise has made for our challenge and I came across your travel blog. I'm from Pukekohe about 45 minutes out of Auckland and have really enjoyed looking at your photo's of Napier. We haven't been down there for a couple of years but I do enjoy that city. I don't hope you weren't going to Christchurch that is such sad news but Christchurch is (was) very English and very much like parts of England. Take care and have a wonderful trip around our neck of the woods, Queentown is lovely as well. Take care no there are many houses in some areas as we only have 4 million people in the whole of NZ. Have a great trip in our piece of paradise.
Kathie
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