Today's tour was led by a delightful young woman who clearly loves her hometown area. As we left the port area I got one picture of the Monterey Pine logs that are grown here and exported, mostly to Chine of course. They grow very fast here - ready to harvest in 25 years as opposed to 80 years at home - so they are everywhere. The market for the logs is slowly drying up, so they often now turn the logs into pulp, dry it to fiber and ship that to China. Also, China is buying up a lot of the Australian trees that burned in the recent big fires because they can get it on the cheap. Good for Australia, not so good for New Zealand.
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| Monterey Pine logs ready for China |
We learned about the major even here that shaped the city. In February 1931 there was a 7.8 point earthquake that lasted for 2 minutes. Besides knocking down most of the brick buildings, it caused a fire that burned most of the buildings left standing in downtown. But more surprisingly, it brought up over 12 square miles of new land that had been just under the surface. So what was a virtual island downtown connected by two strips of land suddenly was a mountain surrounded by flat land. I can't even imagine. They rebuilt the town in 2 years in art deco style which was all the rage then and now that's what Napier is known for. It took the people about 10 years to feel comfortable that the new land wasn't going to go back down again before they started building on it, but still in the art deco style even though the rest of the world had moved on by the 1940's. Not much grows on the "new" land because the salt content is still so high.
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| The Men's Club |
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| Typical art deco style |
We stopped at 2 wineries, Moana Park and Brookfield, neither of which had wines any better than what we get on the ship so we weren't tempted to buy. The use of netting is common to keep the birds away although it is very expensive and labor intensive. And they plant a rose bush at the end of many of the rows of grapes as a sort of warning of poor soil. It will show up in the rose bushes first. They also bring in sheep a few months before harvest to eat the leaves around the grapes. The grapes are too young and sour to interest the sheep, but they love the leaves.
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| Rose bushes at the end of the row |
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| Expensive netting along the bottom to protect the grapes |
Along our drive in the TukiTuki Valley, we encountered lots of wildlife including sheep, farmed deer, and cattle who didn't always stay in their pasture.
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| Sharing the road with the bus |
Some of the locals brought their old cars to the port to show us
Afraid I had a bit of a run in with another passenger. I don't think this fellow has quite all of his faculties, so I'll cut him a bit of slack. But when he said that one of my favorite waiters, Jeremy who is as sweet as can be and looks a bit like an Indonesian version of our grandson Reagan, was stupid, I had to speak up. All I said was that I didn't agree and I had nothing but good things to say about the staff, but I'm afraid he didn't like that and got a bit annoyed at me. He said I may not agree, but he WAS stupid. Anyway, Michael told him that was enough and he better move along. I was thinking, but didn't say because my mother taught me to be nice, don't speak ill of our waiters! They work harder than you'll ever know, buster. And besides, how many languages do you speak? And you say they are stupid? Harumph!
Another quiet evening with Jan and Tom for dinner at Compass Rose. Then to the show to hear Australian soprano Emily Garth. She has a lovely voice, but why do artists insist on audience participation? Let's just hear you sing.
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