Ramble
Quest - Bothered by Earthquakes? Have some wine. (Napier).
After an earthquake leveled Napier in 1931 it was rebuilt in the popular Art Deco style of that time. The city has cultivated the Art Deco label and does a pretty good job of both maintaining the character and promoting its image. While few of the buildings are architectually outstanding, the large numbers of pastel painted Deco buildings makes Napier a must-see destination for buffs.
Napier also mimicks northern California as a wine region. Grabbing a crummy rented bike at Marineland, I head out on my own wine tour on a windy, rain-threatening day. With my crude visitor's center map of the wine country, I plan a circuit of four wineries. The way out towards Mission winery passes through the ugly outskirts of Napier, remaining charmless until the Park Island Recreation Area. I stop at the cemeteries there (nothing special, but a view from the top) and cut over to Church road. From Park Island on, the riding is mostly through lovely pastures, vineyards and orchards. Mission is one of the larger wineries, with very attractive grounds and interesting historical photographs inside. Nearby Church Road winery is smaller, with friendly workers, but recently bought out by a big company.
Next on my list is Park Estate, but I somehow miss the turn-off for them and wind up going to Brookfields next. This place is busy (time of day has a lot to do with this) and a tad snooty. They do set out the best wines for tasting though and the staff is knowledgable. Finally, I swing back to Park Estate, which is small and gearing up for a private function. All of these places have restaurants (Church Road was remodeling) that looked pretty good. If I wasn't running out of time with the bike rental I would have eaten at Park Estate.
Most of the Hawkes Bay wineries are pretty good and often reasonably priced. I always spit out at tastings, but even with alternating glasses of water I found four winery visits to be an absolute maximum. You can only taste so much at one time.
Just to prove that there are jerks everywhere in the world, I have a nasty experience riding back along a busy road. I'm on a (thankfully) wide shoulder with cars passing by at high speeds when I see something shoot over my handlebars, seemingly at bullet speed. It seems that some asshole has hurled an orange at me from a speeding car. Had my arm been hit I would have been in serious danger of sliding into traffic.
The rain keeps missing me in Napier, politely waiting until I'm heading indoors, such as popping into the small but well presented (good earthquake info) Napier Museum. Atop Bluff Hill on a glorious morning, I daydream in the sunshine while gazing out to sea. Later, I take a long (more later) hike over to the small botanic gardens and the excellent cemetery above it. The gardens have a few aviary cages, with mostly very ordinary birds. However, in one cage they have a Tibetan Golden Pheasant, a rare bird, and this particular one is truly the most beautiful bird I've ever seen. It looks like an Egyptian god. The Golden Pheasant comes up to me from the back of the cage and coos elegantly. I actually come back here (OK, I was cutting through to check out the famous Rothman's Building) and this fabulous bird comes up to me again after I flatter him a bit.
My route to the gardens was needlessly long because I asked a guy directing traffic for a road race for directions and he sent me completely the wrong way. Amazingly, much later and far from where I saw them before, I come across these runners again and see this same guy, who had moved to another spot to direct traffic. Suspiciously, he asks if I found the gardens (I think he could tell his directions were wrong) and I tell him no. He then gives me new directions and sounds far more confident than the first time. Turns out he's right the second time.
Time for a couple travel stories. One of the Brookfield winery guys says he was working as a waiter in a place where a guy ordered a $10,000 (I'm assuming NZ) bottle of wine. He orders it over ice (a red wine!) and with a coke to drink along with it! He and his girlfriend finish it and order another bottle in the same fashion. They drink about a third of the second bottle and leave the rest to the waiter as a tip. The Brookfield guy says he called ten friends and they each took turns tasting with an eyedropper.
Belgium Christophe, a fireman heading south for the "Fireman's Olympics" in Christchurch, has a most interesting transport style -- he bikes and hitchhikes. Yes, he bikes for awhile and then hitches with the bike! People are actually picking him up and finding room for the bike and his pack. He's been able to do this for three weeks.