This morning we set off into Napier and headed towards a lookout point at the top of a hill on the edge of town. At the top, we could see for miles across the bay, and directly below us we watched all the comings and goings at the port, including hundreds of logs being loaded onto container ships heading for Asia. Our main stop for the day was on our way back down the hill at the former Napier prison which closed in 1993.

We pulled into the carpark and had to knock on the old wooden door to be let in! The place has since been turned into a backpackers hostel, but they also do self guided and guided tours, and the prison has been left as it was when it closed. We were waiting for our audio guides when the owner found us and gave us a couple of free postcards! She was a friendly scottish lady who also asked us if we fancied parking our van up and doing a couple of weeks work for her! First job offer we've had! We said we had to get to Dunedin for our Rubgy game, but we did consider it for a while after she left us! What changed Laura's mind against it was our audio tour of the prison that followed!

We walked through the cell blocks and saw the padded cell and a cell where an inmate had hung himself. The whole place was reputed to be haunted and the audio tour filled us in on all of the ghosts that haunted the prison - we also saw the yard and the gallows where the hangings took place. The backpackers slept in the cells as they were and it was all too creepy for Laura! It was very interesting though and well worth a visit, even if we didn't take the job! A TV programme called International Ghost Hunters used the prison for their end of season finale in the summer and stayed their for a week, apparently getting lots of ghostly stuff on camera. The owner told us to google it but we haven't go round to it yet...

After the prison we parked up in Napier again and found an Indian restaurant with a lunch special on which we very much enjoyed! Then we drove halfway between Napier and Hastings towards a campsite marked on the map. When we got there we found the unofficial campsite, but there were signs saying no casual / freedom camping, only self-contained vehicles allowed. But as there were toilets on the site we thought we'd be ok...

After reading for a while we walked along the road to some shops and bought a case of Tui lager, a paper and some chocolate! As we'd had a big lunch we just had some crackers for tea (though there weren't many crackers left!) and enjoyed our beer and chocolate before bed!