Napier diary of events

Had a fantastic weekend in Napier with parents.

Friday

• 7.30am: BP – $80 to fill the car up 🙁
  
• 11.30am: Day-long business meeting in Elsthorpe – well it was a day off for me patting the lovely cats
  
• 6.00pm: Walked along the newly developed promenade running almost the entire length of Marine Parade on the domain that runs along the beach
  
• 7.30pm: fantastic dinner at Trattoria Alla Toscana in Napier (I had potato gnocchi with pesto and a taste of tiramisu – not as good as mine, but almost, too much chocolate)

Saturday

• 9.30am: bagel and Allpress coffee at Cafe Aroma – the Vespas out front and general Vespa theme was interesting. Coffee a bit milky (but that’s what I expect from Allpress)
  
• 10.30am onwards: shops shops shops! Poked around in a couple of antique stores which was interesting. Wandered back to the motel via the promenade and sunken garden which was lovely.
  
• 7.00pm: great evening and dinner at Craggy Range winery (I had double roasted garlic souffle and a taste of creme brulee – absolutely heavenly – will have to learn how to make it)

Sunday

• 10.00am: 5 grain toast at coffee at Ujazi – sat outside the adjacent shop which was some kind of gallery with a display of all sorts of weird and wonderful teapots. Butter was hard, too hard even for the solid 5-grain toast, so the cafe was immediately black-listed despite the coffee actually being very good (L’Affare)
  
• 11.30am: wandered around Havelock North shops – however only 1 or 2 open. Got some bread from Jackson’s bakery (got fabulous bread there last time) to bring home for breakfast this morning.
  
• 12.30pm: Lunch at a new winery Black Barn – which we’ll never visit again for lunch! None of us wanted a great big $30 steak/rabbit/eel meal so ordered a selection of bread and cheese boards and wine by the glass – the totally snotty waiter was quite cold towards us when he realised we were hogging a table and spending only a measly $70! However, we did find out that they have ‘retreat’ properties and one in particular (Rush Cottage) looked quite appealing and very reasonable for a party of 4 for a long weekend.
  
• 2.30pm: visit to Crab Farm winery on the Napier-Gisborne road for some of their delicious reserve chardonnay. They are in the middle of reservations and are opening a cafe which will be a home-baking kind of a cafe and will offer things like platters, scones, coffee, cookies etc. We were talking to the wine maker who said he was quite nervous to be the first winery in the area to not go the elaborate white linen tablecloth way however following our experience just 2 hours before we all jumped for glee and said we were certain it would be a success because that’s what we’d been searching for all weekend!
  
• 3.30pm: 4.5 hour drive back to Wellington.