A VERY LONG, WONDERFUL DAY!

We were loving our chance to get away for a few days, and had enjoyed ourselves so much thus far, that we just had to keep going. We had so much to do and see that we didn't sleep long. We were out early so we could put in a full day, not wasting a minute of our free time! We had a mountain range to cross to reach the east coast, our destination for the day. We drove through a little tiny town that bills itself as the corrugated capital. And it is! Below are a couple pictures of places along the main street of town where tin was used very creatively.

A giant bug on top of this building

Sheep are plentiful in New Zealand, so this is a sheep...

...and this is the sheep dog.

We passed a large field of beautiful blue lavender growing,

lots and lots of equally blue jacaranda trees in full bloom,

beautiful little mountain lakes,

fields and hills,

and eventually reached the beach and some horseback riders. In the background is a little active volcano island in the sea off the coast.

The Maori culture is alive and well, and here were two totum poles. The Maori were quite the carvers. The one on the right depicts a blond, fair skinned man marrying a dark Maori girl.

More rolling hills, but very dry and brown. In spite of all the rain all winter, this summer is much browner than it was when we came last year - in fact they're calling it a drought.

The east coast has a more mild climate, almost Mediterranian-like. It's a famous grape growing region, with beautifully kept vineyards.

This is a new little vineyard, mowed between the rows, and beautiful!

We drove down the coast from Gisborne to Napier. The town of Napier was leveled by a giant earthquake in 1931. The whole town had to be rebuilt. The style in the '30s was Art Deco, and that's the architecture they used to rebuild Napier. The whole downtown is built in Art Deco style, well maintained and brightly painted in the '30s style. They are suppossedly the Art Deco capital of the world, have festivals to celebrate it, sell period clothes in the shops - just very proud of their claim to fame. Below are some examples of the distinctive architecture in the downtown buildings, and in a street of row houses.

The stores that front along the beach look out across the street to this arch that frames the view of the ocean.

Looking beyond the arch, you can see these gardens and arbor at the beach edge. Very beautiful sight.

As evening closed in on us, we saw a pretty double rainbow for quite some time, and then as we started back across the mountain range, the sky lit on fire and gave us a beautiful show most of the rest of the way back.

By the time we reached our room, we'd been in the car for about fourteen hours, and saw more variety and beauty than you can imagine. What a wonderful way to start the new year!