We arrived in Hastings in the early evening to be greeting by Sam's cousin Becca and her twins Jacinta and Flynn. We drove to their house which was in the most idyllic setting - a house surrounded by orchards and trees. We put our stuff in their outside study and went into the house and had dinner - an amazing Roast Lamb. It was just what we had all been waiting for!!!! We stayed up chatting for a while, and it turns out Becca used to work as a Nanny at Petworth House!!!! Then went to bed.

Next morning we woke up early and Becca drove us to Hastings to catch the local bus to Napier. The journey took about an hour and once we arrived we walked out onto the seafront and found ourselves a bed for the night. We stayed in a bed & breakfast / backpackers hostel but there was only one bed spare in the backpackers dorm so Sam and I had a lovely twin room overlooking the sea - usually for b&b for the same price!!!! The owner was really chatty and the place had a real homely feel. We went into town to go to the i-site (tourist information) and booked ourselves on a tour of the town which is mostly all Art Deco. Before that we played some mini golf and I played my best and worst all at the same time!!!! I had 2 holes in one but one hole I kept missing and it took about 15....I lost count...Sam very kindly put that down as 9, but it still ruined my score!!! After lunch we walked up to the Art Deco shop to join the tour. The story of the town goes that it was mostly destroyed in an earthquake in the 1930s and due to the popularity and relative cheapness (and earthquake resiliance) of the Art Deco method of construction the town was designed with that theme. It was really interesting to see the difference between the few surviving buildings compared to the Art Deco stuff of the 30s and the modern building with an Art Deco style. Now most of the Art Deco buildings are protected so you have to have permission almost to change a paint colour or do anything to change the appearance.

Following the tour we walked to the supermarket, got dinner and after eating we went out to see the 'Sound Shell' which is an outside stage on the seafront. That and a nearby fountain are illuminated at night so we got some good pictures!!! The fountain was borrowed from a design of a fountain that used to stand in Bournemouth, which is funny as earlier in the day (before finding this out on the tour) I thought the town had an air of Bournemouth, whilst Sam thought Eastbourne....if you catch my drift. Also, earlier in the day there was a massive procession of girls through the town, ending up at the sound shell - it turns out they were celebrating 125 years of their girls school - predictibly Sam and Karl thought this was great, as this town seemed to have a 9:1 ratio of girls to boys from what we saw!!!!! We got back to the hostel and watched some American Pie 3 with the owner and a Scottish guy then went to bed.