Overnight in Napier

Great full 2 days in Napier – highlights:

• Having a decent drive in the car – yes, we used $160 worth of petrol but it was worth it to go practically 120km all the way (yaaaaay radar detector which prevented 3 tickets) and getting over the Rimutaka Hill in 11 mins – the adrenaline was pure and rushing!
  
  
  
• Seeing our friends from Blenheim.
  
  
  
• Long sunny lunch accompanied by library wine at Clearview Estate vineyard, and meeting their huge cat – nearly put my back out picking him up after the tiny squirming Monty!

• The big beach fire on the beach off Marine Parade – it was like a friendship fire – someone had started it earlier in the afternoon and it was unattended when we were out taking a walk on THE PATH (goes for miles and miles and miles and miles) so we stopped to put a few bits of wood on it and stand around for a chat. Before long we were joined by a lone traveller who asked if he could share our fire and a very friendly local who came up with an armful of wood and introduced himself and told us stories about beach fires at New Years and a free pass to all areas of X-Air last year which seemed to entitle him to go places where he saw the most booze he’d ever seen.

After a lovely dinner at Craggy Range winery in Havelock North we stopped on Marine Parade on our way home (with all the low-slung-jean-wearing teeny boppers) to see what was happening with the fire. A bunch of boozing teenage boys were hovering and left when we arrived saying we could use the fire – we told them we were there earlier stoking it which there were pretty impressed with. We hovered around it, putting on some more driftwood, feeling like we were in some kind of Californian surfing movie (except we had too many clothes and too many years on us!) until another group kids with their tins of Jim and Cola swaggered up (you know that wierd walk they have to do to keep their pants up) and said that they’d heard from these other guys that we owned the fire. So we chewed the fat with them for a bit, then passed it on to their care.

After breakfast this morning we went back for another look and it was still glowing embers. Very cool.

• Breakfast outside.
  
  
  
• New orange dish and ramekins.
  
  
  
• OTT bling from an antique store in Ahuriri.

Great weekend.