We arrived in Hawke's Bay after traveling through some pretty isolated through the mountains roads coming across from Taupo. The sun was shining & we loved the look of this area. Our Nautilus accommodation overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It's a very unusual coastline, rocky beach & no swimming here as the underwater shelf drops away quickly close to the shoreline. Woke yesterday to a very bleak rainy day so we decided to do the rounds of some local wineries. Firstly we accidentally found the Mission Estate Winery, which happened to have a long Marist History in the area but there hasn't been Brother's operating it for 20 years now. It was a most beautiful building & venue both as a winery & as a reception area. From there to a chocolate factory where we had a couple of samples. Then onto Ngatarawa winery where to tasting area was a converted former thoroughbred stable. Interesting history about it's past. Then on to Clearview winery for a delicious lunch. After lunch we checked out Elephant Hill winery which was close by. We found out they were having a Degustation that night so we booked in, luckily taking the last 2 spots due to a cancellation. The dinner & accompanying wines were amazing. We also met some lovely people seated around us. On Saturday morning we got organized & headed off from Napier checking out the Bluff on our way out of town. Took us about 3 hrs with a small break to reach Peka Peka where Joyce & Snow met us near their place.