Kia Ora

We are in Napier today. Kia Ora in Māori is like Aloha to the Hawaiians. It means “hello”. SO, Kia Ora, everyone. We took the shuttle bus into town after we watched them dock at noon. First we walked to the beach, then we headed into town. There was an earthquake in 1933 that pretty much destroyed the downtown area. So when they rebuilt it, they designed the buildings in the Art Deco style. Napier is one of the busiest ports in the country. They export lumber, kiwi fruit, wine , wool and lamb.

We walked down the main shopping street. It is like the downtown areas we used to have in cities. We stopped at a cafe for chicken wraps, and then did a bit of shopping. We found a shop for large ladies of a certain age. It had good quality clothes. I got 2 shirts and a pair of pants Bunny got 2 shirts. We went back to the shuttle to go back to the ship to get our tour to the wine tasting. We took a bus for a 7 minute drive to the Hawks Bay Club. It’s a beautiful old building and Is a private club. They had 11 wineries sampling their wares. Since there was no Reisling, I didn’t buy any thing. We did get a free wine glass out of it. We stayed a short time, then back to the ship. Bunny edited photos on her laptop. I rested and read. We went to dinner in our new shirts. I had Southern Fried Chicken which was pretty good. I went out on deck to photograph the sunset and we saw dolphins jumping through the waves. They were smaller dolphins than the bottlenose ones we see at home. Other than the Cabo whales, it was my first animal sighting in the ocean. After dinner, we joined friends in the lounge for an after dinner drink-water on the rocks for me.
‘One of the tours available today was a tour in a vintage car. When we came back to the ship at 5:00 the cars were parked by the ship. Their drivers were all dressed in period clothes. There are photos below, as well as some of the art deco buildings. Another successful day in New Zealand.
I forgot to mention there was a Māori man who welcomed the ship this morning. He was there when we came back so I took his picture with his cape and spear. The bottom right photo is logs stacked up for shipping out.