Napier, NZ

We are sitting in the common area of an old 30s era art deco hotel, previously called the “Criterion Hotel”, now operating as a hostel, called the Criterion Art Deco Backpackers hostel.  But first, we must take you back to Rotorua for the moment.

We were greeted by the rain as we came into Rotorua, but it came and went enough for us to explore the town center.  The first evening, we stepped into a restaurant – “Nuvolari”, named after an italian race car driver, Tazio Nuvolari.

The restaurant was situated in an area aptly coined ‘Eat Street’.  The reason wny this place is worth mentioning is because it quickly became our favorite place to go to eat & relax while in Rotorua.  Our dinner was incredible, but most importantly, Dan fell in love with a painting of Tazio Nuvolari that hung in the restaurant, but more on that later.  We retired to our rooms fairly early as it started to rain again, and so we broke out ‘The Lord of the Rings’ just to see the first 30 minutes where the shots were taken around Hobbiton, while we still had the real thing fresh in our minds.

The following morning, we woke up to blue skies, which set the precedent for the rest of our day in Rotorua.  We started the day “sharing” an apricot pie (left over from our stop at the bakery in Matamata) and hot chocolate while sitting in the hostel’s courtyard.  Dan had eaten most of the pie while I was shortly distracted with the laptop, but when I had my one bite, I could see why it was so difficult for him to stop eating.  The apricot pie was much better than the apple pie we had for breakfast yesterday. The fruit was fresh and didn’t seem like it came out of a can.  With enough in our bellies to tie us over for a couple of hours, we started our walking tour.

We had quite accidentally fell upon Government Gardens, which housed a lawn bowling club, well-manicured gardens, steaming hot pools, and the Rotorua Museum (the focal point of the grounds), which used to be a 1908 Bath House. This was built to lure European tourists to New Zealand and was envisioned by a guy named Wohlmann.  We continued along the bank of Lake Rotorua, which circled back and intersected with Eat Street.  By this time it was lunch and we were lured again into Nuvolari because of the cheap prices and great food.  We sat on the patio and ordered a meal that did not disappoint us and finished off with coffee, cappuccino and a chocolate almond torte to share as we took the opportunity to write in our journals.

Dan also asked the waitress if he could take a photo the painting of whic he had taken notice the night before.  The waitress mentioned that it was a commissioned piece, painted by a local artist specifically for the restaurant.

After our journaling, we took the time to buy a bottle of wine and small block of cheese, and we took these back to our hostel to drink in the courtyard. There we met a young couple (just out of school) from Germany as well as a guy from the UK.  This meet-up turned out to be the catalyst for our evening socializing.

Around 5pm, we decided to go back to town, where they closed off the street for a night market, that apparently occurs every Thursday. We weren’t too hungry for a large dinner, so we decided to buy some fresh tomatoes, basil, blue cheese, garlic and bread from select tents/kiosks, altogether at a cost of $10 CDN – pretty nice as a dinner price!  With our ingredients in tow, we went back to the hostel and chopped everything up and made bruschetta.  This was the first time we had cooked dinner in any hostel and it was quite enjoyable, as we shared with other backpackers.  Everyone was helping each other cook and offering bits and bites of their own concoctions. Apparently our bruschetta was not the ‘typical backpackers’ cooking, as it was a little fancier than pasta or canned food. 🙂  During this period, we met a great deal of people, Ebba from UK, Micah from Wisconsin, Brahm from the UK, Felix & his girlfriend from Germany, Alex from France… and a few others.  We all had a good chat around the kitchen table, all sharing our stories and after dinner we decided to play ‘President’, a card game that Dan taught the group.  This took us until bedtime, thus ending our long and successful day.

This now takes us to today, our first of two nights in Napier.  We woke up this morning to grey and showering skies, and had left Rotorua by 9am.  The drive was uneventful, since we were on one of the major motorways, and perhaps because we’ve now been spoiled by such diverse landscapes and roads already.  Our pit-stop of the day was only 1.5 hours into the drive, where we stopped at a cafe in Taupo, who is apparently hosting the Ironman 2011 race this weekend.  We took the opportunity to eat as well as plan out our accommodations for the next 4 days. We booked 2 night`s in Napier as well as 2 nights just outside of Wellington.

After our lunch, we drove out of town and headed straight for Napier.  Just prior to entering the town, the motorway was lined with about a dozen wineries.  The town itself was rebuilt in the 1930s in the art deco style popular at that time, after it was leveled due to an earthquake.  So, there’s a lot of pastel pinks, blues and yellows dotting the streets.  Our hostel sits in a perfect area, with the main shopping area right along our entrance, and the beach just one block down.

Once we were settled into our rooms, we took off to explore and to eat a late lunch at Cafe Rosso.  Admittedly, this mainly caught my attention because of Cafe Rosso back home in Calgary which myself and several iStockers (including a particular tall, hot, blonde project manager.. who shall remain nameless :P) had frequented.

We spent most of the afternoon window shopping and walking along the Marina Parade, the main drag outlining the shores. Tomorrow will be yet another day in Napier and hopefully an opportunity to take more photos of the neat architecture in this town.