while before heading into Napier, it was a fairly rainy day so we were hoping that the weather would brighten up in the afternoon but no such luck!

We headed off after lunch and had a good wander, we first hit the beach and found it to be closed due to big surf. The breakers were huge and the ocean looked rather fierce but it was nice just sitting on the beach listening to the pounding ocean and watching the crashing waves. We then went to check out the Art Deco centre of Napier. Napier was completely flattened by New Zealand’s largest ever recorded earthquake which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale. As a result of this there was wide spread devastation, a lot of lives were lost and there were up to 600 aftershocks felt over the following two weeks. The quake was that dramatic that the land actually rose by more than two metres in places and over 300 kilometres of new land was gained from

the sea! After the initial shock the town grasped the opportunity to start again and Napier was rebuilt in the style of times which was influenced heavily by New York hence it becoming a very Art Deco town. It is a fantastic town and it is great to see this style of architecture especially in today’s very glass and steel era, it really is a unique place. After all of the days events we fancied a drink so we checked out the local bar and found it had a pretty good meal menu so treated ourselves to dinner. It was a very lively place and it make a nice change to eat out. We then found a lovely Tapas bar and had a pint in there before heading back to our campsite.

We were up early as I wanted to phone Mum and see how she was doing and also find out about funeral arrangements, etc. Again we had phone hassle, the girl didn’t have a clue which phone card I should use so I ended up with a phone card