North Island, New Zealand

Napier

Napier is renowned as a wine producing region, which means nothing to us since we don't drink.

It also draws considerable number of tourists because of the concentration of Art Deco buildings there. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931. When the city was being rebuilt, the then most fashionable architectural style - Art Deco - was used. So within the city centre, there were dozen of buildings with Art Deco and Spanish Mission style.

Personally I find Art Deco rather bad taste, but it is still interesting to see such a big cluster of buildings of this style.

Art Deco street scenes

Art Deco exteriors

Art Deco interiors and decorations

It was quite relaxing walking along the Marine Parade at the seashore.

Somewhere along the Parade, we noticed several little birds having a party, bathing in a shallow pool of water. We dared not walk close nor did we have the video cam ready. So we just used my camera to capture the precious moments.

On our last day in Napier, I began to feel a pain in my left ankle. It got worse and worse in the evening. After a sleepless night, the pain got so bad that I thought I had a fractured bone somewhere ...