After leaving Wellington, we headed up the east coast of the North Island, our first stop was the town of Hastings. We just stayed one night as there wasn’t a lot to see or do. In the morning we had a look around the little cute town of Havelock North before we headed up to the top of Te Mata Peak. From the top, the views were magnificent. Out over Hawkes Bay coastline and over to the Kaweka Mountain Ranges (they had a dusting of snow on top). You could see right down into the valley, with the lovely wineries skirting the river.

On our way to Napier, just north of Hastings, we stopped for lunch at a cute little grey pebble beach. With the white cliffs in the distance, it looked more like the south coast of England, rather than New Zealand. We got to Napier and drove through the town centre and Marine Parade. It’s a really cool, retro place, lots of the buildings are in the ‘art deco’ style, which Cat particularly likes. This is because there was a huge earthquake here in the 1930’s and they had to totally rebuild the town and that was the style of the day. They’ve since protected the style of building, mostly for tourist purposes. There is an art deco shop, playing 1930’s music and even the shop assistants were dressed in that style. They even had a old 1930’s car which you could take a tour of the town in if you have the dollar. We looked around the town, and took loads of pictures of the town square and buildings. There were loads of lovely shops too, you (Cat) could spend a fortune. We were a bit disappointed with the wine centre, Hawkes Bay is meant to be top class for wines in New Zealand, but the centre was small and more of a money making shop then a useful place for tourists. We decided to go the pub instead!

Cat drive for the first time in New Zealand, a total of 4km, to Ahuriri, then Captain Ste took over the journey to Gisborne. We drove up the “Pacific Coast Highway”, except you hardly ever saw the sea. But the views were nice of the lakes, forests and mountains. We prefer the Pacific Coast Highway of California.

We got to Gisborne in the afternoon and the sun was out, yey! We had a look along the main street and then went and found the statues of Captain James Cook and Young Nick, the surgeons boy who first spotted land. Gisborne is famous for being the first place where the HM Bark Endeavour dropped anchor for the first time in New Zealand. Cooks initial mission was to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the sun, from the southern hemisphere. When they had done this in Tahiti, Cook opened a sealed orders to find “a continent or land of great extent” and claim it for Britain. They came across some Maori natives and through a misunderstanding, their exchange ended in bloodshed and Cook and the Endeavour went on their way claiming the land to be called “Poverty Bay”, “as it afforded no one thing we wanted” from Cooks journal.

We had a few days in Gisborne and the weather was mostly good. We walked to the Cook national historic reserve and spent some time on the three beaches, Kaiti, Midway and Waikanae. On the Sunday, the Rugby World Cup came to a close with the French taking on the All Blacks in the final. We watched this at one of the nice local pubs and ended up sharing our table with a guy from Dunedin, who didn’t really follow rugby, but thought he’d ort to watch it, and three Americans (two of which sounded Irish) who didn’t have a clue at all! It was a good night and they were all nice people. It was funny watching the big Maori men getting really nervous and unable to watch, cheering them one second and swearing at them the next. Luckily, the All Blacks held on and everyone was happy, for about 10 minutes, then the pub emptied and everyone got back on with their normal lives!

Hawkes Bay and Poverty Bay were both nice places. It’s a shame Cook couldn’t come back to Gisborne now, and see that there is something he would want, nice wine!