John had to get a photo! Anyways, basically Napier was razed back in the day when there was an earthquake….right before the Depression actually. Art deco was huge and a lot of the city was rebuilt in that fashion. I had to look it up when I got back, but Art Deco is basically a movement during that time where geometrical patterns were popular, and people were interested in all of the archeology taking place in ancient lands – so influences of African, Mexican and Greek cultures snuck in as well. I didn’t read this explicitly, but it appears that many of the colors were pastel as well. Here are some art deco buildings we walked by on our walking tour.
At the end, I was a little disappointed because we were supposed to see a “toothy mermaid” according to my guidebook, but as you can see there is nothing toothy or mermaidy about her!
Instead it was a Maori legend about girl who fell in love, went out to the sea and tried to return to her lover but was turned into the reef. I’m probably missing parts of that story – but no teeth or mermaids involved. I’m sorry, its just disappointing when you are expecting something like this:
So anyways, the city was pretty cute though (it even had OPOSSUM WORLD!), and we hiked up to a viewpoint where got a few photos of everything as well.
We then headed North to Te Urewera National Park. The name literally means, “burnt penis” in Maori. Evidently, its based off of a famous chief who was sleeping by the fire one night, and rolled over and well….Te Urewera. At any rate, the park did not resemble its name, luckily, and was pretty amazing. We went on four hour loop up to Lake Waikareiti and through some bush and back. By the end, my heels were a little sore and I had started to get a little whiny. Good thing we saw all these cute frogs on the walk to keep me excited!
Here are some of the other sites from the walk:
When we headed back to use the restroom, we were told by some fellow campers to check out Lou’s Lookout, which was only a half an hour hike. Here are some photos we snapped at the top.
That 30 minute hike was actually better than the six hour one! There were crazy rock formations (think Indiana Jones) all the way up, and great views.
We lucked out the days we were camping as well, and had no rain. Yes, weather is turning here and we are sad about it. : (
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