Not the best nights' sleep ever, as still feeling a bit dodgy, so decided to just get on with it, as I was already awake. (Couldn't actually fail to be, what with all the traffic noise and 2 tourist parties from somewhere in Asia crashing about the hotel from about 6am!!!)

So, leisurely check out and headed out toward Napier on the West Coast, but going via Waimangu Volcanic Valley. There were a couple of places I could have stopped, but this one seemed to be on my route and sounded interesting. Got to Waimangu just after 9am after a fairly easy drive on some great straight roads, and opted for the hour and a half walk, as I figured that would still get me to Napier by early afternoon. It's a self guided walk, you follow the tracks and the signposts and read the free map/guide thing, so it's not quite as good as having a guide take you round (but that was more expensive and longer), but it's still fascinating, especially if you've never been anywhere volcanic before. Tried to take some decent photos, but the sun was against me and it's really hard to do justice to the fabulous scenery and views in the valley. It was nowhere near as smelly as Rotorua, but equally compelling and very, very beautiful.

The valley was formed as a result of a huge eruption over 100 years ago, and is an example of nature rebuilding itself, the whole valley is self propagated, no planting was done. It's also quite amazing that plants can live around highly acidic 50+ degree water, but they do! Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day, and the walk is mostly downhill, though there are a few steps up to see a few sights. You can actually do a boat trip around the lake at the end of the valley, but I really didn't have time. I got the bus back up the valley and was on my way to Napier just after 11am.

The rest of the drive down to Napier was fine and arrived there after 1pm and headed straight into the city centre. Napier is a wonderfully preserved Art Deco town right on the sea front and looked its absolute best in the late sunshine. The town started out as a smallish deep water port that suffered a huge earthquake in the early 1930's. Those buildings that survived the earthquake were destroyed by the fire that swept through the town minutes after, leaving almost total devastation in its wake.

On the plus side, the earthquake raised the ground level, so the town which had initially been on a small peninsula, surrounded by lagoons and hemmed in by the sea, suddenly had no lagoons and about 30 more metres of seashore, so they had masses more land. Given the straightened times (it being the Great Depression and all) money was scarce, so Art Deco, then just coming into being, was chosen as the style for the town, as it was seen as modernistic, celebratory and most importantly, cheap to build!

What's nice about Napier is that none of the buildings are the same, as it was a small town and the architects were onsite, everyone could have their own individual finish to their building, so there are always new things to see. I was lucky enough to be in time for the 2pm walking tour of Napier centre, run by the Art Deco trust, the guys who guard and support the preservation and restoration of Napier's buildings, so we had a great intro to Art Deco, to Napier's history and information about all the buildings as we walked around. We also got to see inside some of them, which was nice to see the internal features as well as the exteriors.

Our tour was done by after 4pm, and I wanted to see the Rothmans building before it got dark, which was on the other side of town, so I took off to see that and then went and checked into my hotel. Motel more like, really not being terribly impressed with the accommodation on this leg of my trip. Still, it was only for one night. Went out and got pizza for tea, planning to update my blog offline - no internet access here!! Unfortunately, pizza did not agree with my still slightly dodgy body and I was having a rough night.