On to Hawkes Bay
We had 3 days in Wellington for the wedding, which was very enjoyable! During this time we had many enjoyable hours with our friends, but now it was time to move on with our trip.
We headed north as that was the only direction we could go, through Palmerston North, where we saw some beautiful Maori carvings, then on to the Hawkes Bay area.
We had intended to spend some time in this area to see the architecture of the two towns, Hastings and Napier, both of which were extensively destroyed in the 1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake.
When we arrived in Hastings I noticed that there was a guided walking tour of the town that was conducted by the local historical society. This tour explained the rebuilding of the town after the 1931 earthquake, but for this we needed to be there early in the morning. So we booked our hotel for two nights.
The next morning I picked up a wheelchair that I had organised to assist my mother on the walking tour, and we proceeded to the tour meeting place. I knew we were a little early but was a little worried that by the time we were to start ao one else had arrived, then one other person came and enquired if we were taking the tour, we answered we were and he introduced himself as our guide for the morning and that we were the only ones for the day.
It appeared that we were to have a private tour, this suited us as we could travel at our own pace and ask whatever questions we liked! The Guide was good he could answer all of our questions about Hastings and its buildings!
The tour stretched longer than normal and we were shown things not normally included on the tour, so by the time we finished it was lunchtime. That afternoon we continued exploring Hastings and then went to the local lookout, high above the town, from there we were able to see our next stop, the other town destroyed in the 1932 earthquake, Napier!
Napier proved to be an even better place to see examples of 1930’s buildings, in fact, it along with one town in America are considered the best examples of Art Deco buildings in the world and Napier is being considered for a world heritage listing. This town was so good that we are planning to return one day to continue exploring it!
Copyright
Viewgrant Pty Ltd 2025
Richardsclan
Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s New Zealand Travels