Monday 16th January 2023
After checking out of our hotel, the Quality Inn Napier, we went to explore the town of Napier. We started by wandering along Marine Parade, a wide, leafy street with gardens between the road and the seafront.
We walked back along the beach front. The beach itself isn’t sandy, but is made up of black pebbles. It’s still pretty picturesque.
We next went into the town centre, and had a wander around the streets. There are loads of lovely art deco buildings, mainly because the whole town was rebuilt in the 1930s following a major earthquake in 1931 which destroyed most of the town.
It was quite nice to walk around the town and admire the many art deco buildings, I took some photos of a few of my favourites.
On the way back to our hotel we passed by Lick this. They have many flavours of ice cream, and today one of these included banana so we obviously had to give it a try. We bought a cup with 3 flavours (banana, maple walnut, and Ferraro Rocher) and it was absolutely huge! Good job we only bought one to share!
We walked back to our hotel to pick up the car, then drove to Greenwich cafe for a sausage roll to share. The filling was exceptional, though the pastry wasn’t that crisp or flaky.
The drive to Palmerston North took a couple of hours, and passed through the most beautiful scenery. Once we reached Palmerston North, we went straight to the Te Manawa Museum. It’s a lovely little museum, which is free to enter and mainly focuses on history and nature in the local area, with a bit of art thrown in. A lot of the exhibits are interactive, so it would also be pretty good for kids.
We next went to The Victoria Esplanade to see the rose garden. The garden was absolutely beautiful, and a very relaxing way to spend the rest of the afternoon.
It’s a couple of hours drive from New Palmerston to our final destination of Wellington, so we stopped off along the way at the Salt and Wood Collective for dinner. We ordered jalapeño poppers, pork ribs, and fries with pulled pork to share. Not the healthiest food, but tasty!
We then continued to Wellington, and went straight to the Sojourn Apartment Hotel – Ghuznee, where we were staying. It’s a very new hotel so all the rooms were clean and shiny. The rooms are all studio apartments, although they’re pretty tiny (smaller than most of the regular hotel rooms we’ve stayed in). We’re not planning on cooking here, so don’t especially need the space, and it’s centrally located so we were happy with our choice of accommodation.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 