A little windy they said..

Te Mata Peak in New Zealand has to be one of my most favourite views. We were on a New Zealand cruise, visiting the city of Napier. My parents were visiting me on the ship, so I decided it was definitely right we spent the day as proper tourists. We took the bus tour up the tree-lined roads to the popular lookout Te Mata and were blown away by the views. Literally! The wind that day was crazy! I lost my sunglasses just after this picture was taken!! Two minutes later, my mum lost hers too! If you are a hiker or mountain biker, this is totally the place for you. The terrain and the stunning views would make for a perfect day. Just hold on to those sunnies!!

Napier is in the Hawkes Bay region (yes the place that's famous for its wine!) on the eastern seaboard of the North Island. I learnt that day that the whole city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and then completely rebuilt. Not only rebuilt, but designed in the dominant architectural style of the time. Art Deco. 

We docked about 1.5 miles from the city centre,  and jumped into one of the organised shuttle busses to travel into town. We can't walk from that port as it is an industrial port with a load of huge tree logs surrounding the area! 

The views from the shuttle bus were incredible. It is a long windy road but the big windows allow you to see everything. The hills, the scenery, the colour of the grass! Seriously, the colour of the grass in NZ is amazing! 

We had no organised plans for this day and wanted to see what tours were on offer before we decided. We walked straight up to the tour stalls as the bus dropped us right next to them. We had a look at the variety of adventures on offer and decided to book ourselves into the Te Mata Peak bus tour. We had a bit of time to kill before we had to meet for the tour so we wandered around the city centre. Immediately we were greeted by 1930's vintage cars and their drivers giving insightful, exciting information and offering little drive around tours. The architecture really impressed us, and as my dad is an architect he was very interested. There were little vintage shops where I bought a cute 1930's dress. I can't remember what the shop was called, but it was literally filled with the most random things, perfect for fancy dress parties! In fact I came back to the same shop a couple weeks later to buy some random bits for a costume party. Before we had to run to catch our tour, we picked up a couple bottles of wine from the New Zealand Wine Centre on Shakespeare road. Priorities !